


confectionery

by Xine



Category: Mortal Kombat (Video Games), Mortal Kombat - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cameos, Character Study, Gen, Ice Cream Parlors, M/M, POV Third Person Limited, Rating May Change, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xine/pseuds/Xine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuai Liang owns and runs an ice cream parlor called Dragon's Ice with his insubordinate, teenaged employee Frost. Much of his life is a continuous routine, days of the week specified with certain tasks, returning customers who always order the same thing, on the same weekday, during the same time window. The only connection he has that has nothing to do with his job is his best friend Tomas, who managed to find him again after he left China for the US over a decade ago.</p><p>Then, on an innocuous Tuesday, a certain stranger walks into his shoppe with a young boy clutching his hand, and suddenly Kuai Liang feels that maybe his life shouldn't be so centered around work.</p><p>[ON INDEFINITE HIATUS]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. KUAI LIANG

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Monday. Kuai Liang begins the week as he always does — regular and routine.

He begins his morning to the sound of the alarm, gentle plucks of a guqin’s strings among the chirping of delicate songbirds through cheap, tinny speakers. It is a simple and unobtrusive melody, one that wakes him without a jerk or a gasp mid-dream, but rather a deep inhale, an upward arch of the back, a stretch of the legs from the thigh down to the Achilles tendon.

Kuai Liang’s bed is — for a few elongated moments — a personal paradise, a soft marsh of cotton and pillows. He takes in the smell of the fresh linen detergent lingering in the bedsheets before allowing his eyes to flutter open.

He is met by darkness, dense dark blues of early morning light peeking through the window blinds, and if it weren’t for his experiencing this daily, the atmosphere could be considered otherworldly. The music filtering through his ears reminds him of his birthplace. It’s bittersweet, yet pleasant.

He shuts it off with a firm press of his fingertips before he can get too sentimental.

With a huff he forces himself to sit up, climb out of bed, and begin his day. His feet do not rise and fall so much as they shuffle across the smooth hardwood flooring to the bedroom door, and as he laces his hands together and stretches toned arms above his head, he notes only a small pain in his lower back. Rarely is there a remnant of rest in his body aside from the typical grogginess, but perhaps he simply didn’t sleep so well last night.

The apartment is by no means spacious, but it is rather empty. In the common room, furniture is kept at its minimum — a sofa, a small television set, a punching bag, a tall but lean bookshelf filled with paperback and hardcover — and similar things could be said about the remainder of the flat. The kitchen holds the essentials, but it is sparsely decorated. The bathroom is small and unremarkable. White walls, few windows, and no houseplants. Vacant.

It’s more like a hotel room than a home.

He blames the lack of homeliness simply on his absence here, constantly busy at work — formulating new flavors, taking inventory, preparing fresh ingredients, running to the nearby market for resupplying — and only coming back for a place to sleep.

He sheds himself of his clothing, unbuttoning his nightshirt and pulling down his underwear along with his pajama bottoms, then throwing the sleepwear in the hamper beside the door. While he meanders into the bathroom, Kuai Liang absent-mindedly recalls the deck that hangs just a few feet away from the two-seated sofa, and makes a mental note to take some time after work tonight to sit up there and take in the view of the surrounding neighborhood.

A flick of a middle finger and the lightbulbs come to life, illuminating the small room with a warm glow. The sudden loss of the dark hurts his eyes momentarily, causing him to squint at his reflection when he turns to the wide mirror. Soaking in the light, his senses relax and he can see himself clearly in the looking glass. His eyes are puffy and the hair atop his head is a mess, locks sticking upward in every which way, curling over towards his left. The stark beard lining his jaw and upper lip has gotten thicker. The scar hasn’t changed.

Over the past couple weeks a dark frame of hair has grown along his jawline, making him appear both older and slimmer. A few of his regulars have complimented him on it — “It’s very befitting!” — despite the sharp edge of the scar cutting in at the right side like an uninvited guest. Thinking on it, he’s never grown a beard before. His brother taught him to shave when he was young, so that’s what he’s always done and never really attempted anything different. He'll try out this unfamiliar style a little bit longer, see what it looks like when it becomes as dense as the house manager's from his fuzzy childhood memories.

Opening the medicine cabinet, he takes his toothbrush and begins to brush his teeth hazily while heading over to the kitchen. He lifts the lid of the rice cooker, preparing enough rice to have now and the rest to have for lunch just before midday. He lets the appliance run on a timer and returns to the bathroom sink to spit out the mint-flavored froth. Gently scrub the tongue, rinse the toothbrush, loop ivory-colored floss around the fingertips, draw and pull between the teeth, toss it and then swish a cap full of mouthwash. A mindless routine that is strangely energizing.

Kuai Liang mentally debates with himself if he should take the time to work out this morning. After a brief glance at the digital clock sitting atop the storage cabinet to his right, he realized there isn’t enough time.

With a sigh, he slides open the shower door and twists the teardrop-shaped knob. He tests the water with his hand, basking in the feeling of pressured drops massaging into his skin, waiting until it is just above lukewarm temperature. He takes a step inside, letting it fall upon his face in an awakening cascade of warmth, and he lists everything he must accomplish today out loud, speaking to himself and the barren walls surrounding him.

* * *

Kuai Liang lives close enough to the ice cream parlor that he walks to and from work every day. The market he purchases nearly all of his supplies at is also just a few blocks away, located in the opposite direction of his apartment building and situated between a bank and a meager but popular children's playground. And since his weekly schedule is so routine, he hardly leaves the neighborhood more than two or three times a month. He doesn't even own a car. A bicycle has been on his to-buy list for three years, but it's so far down from his highest priorities that its essentially forgotten altogether.

He thinks he should probably get out more.

By the time he's reached the glass door, the sun has only barely begun to rise, a tender and soft cerulean peeking from behind the buildings blocking the horizon. The rest of the sky sits comfortably in a royal navy blue, stretching above in stark contrast to the glowing halo encircling the sleeping city. The air is crisp, fresh, and just slightly chilled. It fills his chest with a lovely sharpness, electrifying every branching airway of the lungs in a way that his shower failed to quite do. Silence blankets his body like winter snowfall, everything around him still yet full of life, and Kuai Liang has no doubt that these kinds early, solitary mornings are his favorite.

A welcoming chime echoes when he walks inside, pausing to pull the key out of the lock and pocket the jingling ring into his trousers. He heads toward the kitchen, pressing and holding the light switch until the ceiling-mounted lamps shine at a mellow brightness, vibrant enough to see clearly but not enough to emulate daylight. On the adjacent side, squeezed between the stand-up freezer and the tiled wall, hang numerous colorful aprons, adorned with patterns of milkshakes, spoons, sprinkles, paper cups. He grabs the black one covered in small ice cream cones, pulling the neck strap over his head, wrapping the the thin string around his waist and back to his stomach, tying it neatly in place. He knots it twice to ensure it doesn’t become loose throughout the day.

Mondays are always his busiest of the week, not in terms of customer count but rather in the sheer number of chores and preparation he must do. Nearly half of the flavors were completely depleted by Saturday evening, leaving him with seven types to be mixed, frozen, and stored today to keep up with the supply. Depending on how popular the remaining nine flavors are, he’ll have to make a second batch of those before he comes home tonight.

The most frequently purchased flavor is without a doubt one of his own recipes: a double chocolate ice cream, composed of milk chocolate swirled together in a beautiful marble of white chocolate fudge. Truth be told he’s not quite sure why it is the flavor that empties the fastest — he keeps two extra tubs of it instead of the usual single — but he can’t help but feel flattered that a personal creation is so greatly enjoyed.

As for the rest, chocolate, vanilla bean, and sugar cookie — the seasonal special for spring — ice cream flavors need a second batch by tonight. The dairy-free pineapple and coconut flavor is also nearly gone, being a favorite among lactose intolerant and vegan customers. Watermelon sorbet has taken raspberry’s place for number one most purchased fruit-based product and will need an immediate resupply. The flavor of the week — sea-salt caramel — has already been prepared and frozen since Friday.

Kuai Liang organizes all of this information in his head while he rolls up his sleeves, folding and creasing the cornflower blue fabric up his arms. He silently notes the new looseness of the cuffs around his biceps and takes it as a sign that he’s been slacking in his workout routine. He’ll have to make up for it tomorrow night.

With a quick wash of his hands in the deep-basin sink, he pats them down dry on his apron before opening the standing fridge, pulling out a shallow crate filled with cans of low-fat evaporated milk and half-and-half. These are essentially all he needs, aside from sugar and some flavor-creating elements. The ice cream base is simple because he wants it to be — less ingredients means creamy, rich-tasting desserts without all the fat of traditional recipes.

That’s his outlook, anyway. Customers seem to agree with him, considering the sheer number of them being regular returning patrons. Some of them he knows on a first name basis, others he has their orders being prepared before they say a word to him. His one lone employee has them all memorized as well as he does, especially considering she only works part-time.

Her name is Frost. At least, that’s what she calls herself and — quite aggressively — insists on others referring to her as such. Kuai Liang once knew what her legal name was — being required on her job application and resume — but has since forgotten it except for a vague memory of a hard ‘c’ sound being in there somewhere. He wonders what draws her to such a title, considering the high count of smirks and snorts she gotten from customers being served ice cream by someone named Frost. He doesn’t get it, but he doesn’t mind either.

She’s a good employee, despite her hard attitude and occasional rudeness. Frost is great with customers — kind, polite, accommodating, patient — but with him she can be crass, not taking his job title as owner and boss as an obligation to unearned reverence. He respects her for it, truly, but still attempts to at least be on more friendly, less commanding terms with her. Part of him cannot help but find her good company, even if she can be difficult sometimes.

* * *

After about two hours of measuring, mixing, taste-testing, refining, Kuai Liang hears the soft jingle of the doorbell from outside the kitchen. Grabbing a washcloth and dampening it under a warm tap, he wrings his hands clean as he peeks his head through the doorway. Outside the window, a few people meander on the sidewalks, the sun having risen more than thirty minutes ago. Even through the walls he can hear the singing of small birds.

In front of the tall glass stands the only other person who operates behind the ice cream counter. His gaze meets with Frost’s and he notes the particular messiness of her bleached hair today. The bags under her eyes are darker than usual.

“Good morning.”

She grunts quietly in response, settling her backpack on the floor beside the front counter. With a short beat, she opens her mouth and asks, “What do you need me to do?”

Consistently quick to the point. Kuai Liang gives her a soft smile before nodding, gesturing to the kitchen behind him. She follows him when he turns around, trailing behind him as he hangs the washcloth over the fridge’s door handle.

“It is nothing different than usual. Could you cook and shape the waffle cones? We need at least twenty.” Cones were popular last weekend, and instead of refilling the topping containers or cleaning equipment or organizing the refrigerator, he needs her to focus on only that task.

“Okay,” she replies. Kuai Liang is sure it must be her favorite word, being her go-to for nearly everything he asks her to do. This time, however, she seems a bit off, the dragging of her boots against the tiled flooring following soundly behind her.

He looks away, tending back to the thickening off-white cream in the large, stainless steel mixer before tentatively asking, “Are you feeling alright this morning?”

Clattering of measuring cups, plastic packaging, and a wooden spatula reaches his ears before her voice does, a soft-spoken question of the word “Why?” She doesn’t like to waste her breath, hasn’t since her first day nearly a full year ago.

“You seem more tired than usual. Did you not sleep well?”

There is not a single pause in the sound of her work, and he twists his neck enough to watch her fill a marked glass cup with water and return to the counter, combining the liquid with a beige-colored powder. He can’t see her face, but she doesn’t seem angry or even annoyed — just sluggish. Perhaps sensing his stare, she finally states, “I’m fine. Just stayed up too late studying.”

“Do not cause yourself any unnecessary stress. If you need time off work, please let me know.”

“I won’t and I don’t.”

With a final look at the back of her head — the dark roots of her hair beginning to show underneath the pale blue locks — he lets the topic go, lifting the head of the mixer after switching it off. Silence falls over the two of them, the room absent of noise other than the soft scrape of wood on smooth glass.

It feels uncomfortable and a bit tense — more than what’s normal with Frost — and he wonders if he crossed the line somehow. As he lifts the polished mixing bowl from the stand, however, she speaks up again.

“Thank you, though.”

He looks over at her again, still unable to see her face, but smiles anyway as he says, “No thanks necessary.”

* * *

Frost leaves after an hour of work, slinging her backpack onto her shoulder with a wave before heading out the front door. He reciprocates the farewell and afterward discovers two neat stacks of fifteen pointed cones each standing beside the waffle maker. The waffle maker sits with its faces clean, the bowl and spatula neatly cleaned in the sink. Above proficient work as always. Kuai Liang assumes that her schoolwork reflects the same diligence he sees here at the shoppe.

During the school year Frost comes in before opening to help with smaller tasks like preparing cones or refilling the topping containers, then later returning after classes to do her normal four-hour shift of serving customers and wiping down tables. For the both of them, their schedules rarely stray away from routine.

Tuesdays are usually supply runs to the market, restocking on heavy cream, condensed milk, cane sugar, flavored syrups, peanuts, cookies, sprinkles, gummy candies, dried fruits — the checklist is endless. He uses a dolly cart and a duffel bag to bring it all back to the parlor.

The rest of the week is less hectic. Wednesdays are only moderately busy, but for reasons he hasn't quite figured out yet, hump day has a much higher customer count during lunchtime than any other weekday. Thursdays are a strange lull where the shoppe is its emptiest from opening to closing; Kuai Liang attributes it to being the day where even he — a potential workaholic — starts to feel the wear of long work hours. Fridays are the steadily growing incline leading to the highest peak, a constant yet manageable stream of patrons all day. He sacrifices his lunch break on Fridays to make another, smaller run to the store.

Saturdays, however? Most of the time, both him and his single employee can handle it, but once the hotter seasons start to roll in, "Dragon's Ice" frozen dessert shoppe may as well be a refreshing escape for its visitors and a frozen hell for its owner. The hours between opening time at 9 AM and 11 AM are largely stagnant, but after that point, the line of sweating, sugar-craving locals seems never ending, the bell ringing perpetually, monotonously. For chain creameries, this kind of customer volume is probably normal, but for a such a small shoppe as his, it’s truly a test of how much he loves this job.

Sundays are a short and relaxing end to his work week, thankfully. At first, he found that having someone walk in before noon was as rare as stumbling across a $50 note on the sidewalk — due to religious mass, he assumes — and that customers only came in at sporadic intervals. So, he only runs the shop from noon until 5 PM; Frost doesn't come in at all on Sundays because she'd really have nothing to do with business being so slow. Being a full-time high school student, he's sure she appreciates time off, particularly during winter and late spring when exams are catching up to her like a freight train.

He is looking forward to June if it means having a second pair of hands behind the counter full-time. It will also be nice to have her around all day again; when her full-time employment became part-time with the start of the school year last summer, Kuai Liang hadn’t realized how lonely independent work can be until he had to return to it.

The rest of the day is largely uneventful, as expected. Each Monday goes by without much else than the early morning responsibilities, traffic going in and out being pretty unremarkable. Regulars with a strong sweet-tooth do come in on Mondays, though, and a few stopped by on this one.

Before lunch a heavy man who often faintly smells of alcohol walked in and Kuai Liang recognized him as soon as he opened the door, long ponytail swinging at the back of his head with every step. Despite the hint of booze coming off of him, he’s a friendly and quite jovial fellow, only ever seen with a serene smile on his face. There’s a pair of cops who visit at least once a week during the 2PM to 3PM window. They’re frequent enough that they’re a couple of the many whose names Kuai Liang has memorized — Stryker and Kabal — without having to glance at their badges to double-check.

One of his more... disconcerting returning customers is one whose name he has neglected to learn due to his strangely aggressive aura. Never seen without his burgundy hat or his dark eye makeup, this customer insists on coffee ice cream regardless of it being in season or not. Kuai Liang keeps an airtight container of this recipe just for him when it isn’t the summer, not only to avoid whatever ugliness that may come from failing to do so, but also to ensure the hefty tips the man leaves behind every time.

Frost comes back not long after the two police officers depart with an ice cream cone and a cup of sorbet, respectively. She doesn’t say much when Kuai Liang asks how her day went besides a shrug and a plain statement of “It went.” To his surprise she is the one to bring up her work schedule and availability during the incoming summer vacation first, off-handedly mentioning it after serving a modest group of middle schoolers. He is pleased to find out that she’ll be able to work full-time.

In between lulls in business, Frost gets some of her homework out of the way from behind the counter while Kuai Liang cleans equipment in the back. When it slowly grows dark outside and the streetlamps glimmer with light above the pavement, he hears Frost ring up her final customer before footsteps follow soon afterward.

A shadow casts over the floor and cabinet Kuai Liang is occupied with, making it harder to read the labels of the assorted flavored syrups. A low and plain voice to his side inquires, “Do you need me for anything else?”

Kuai Liang shifts to look up at her from his spot on the floor, then moves to rise from his kneeling position as he says, “No, you’ve done plenty. Head home and get the rest of your homework done.” He sometimes forgets how short she is compared to him until he stands up and faces her head on, yet not once has she seemed perturbed by his stature. Maybe it doesn’t even cross her mind. Maybe he’s just hyper aware.

She turns around and unravels the knot at her abdomen, taking off the apron and hanging it among Kuai Liang’s much larger garments. She owns only one apron, simply a solid black smock with no patterns or even a graphic over the chest. It is a stark difference to the many that he wears himself, all embellished with cute, eye-catching designs. Every once in a while he asks if she would like another apron, yet she insists that this single one is all she needs.

With a curt wave she says goodbye, stepping out of the door with her bag and a coat as he replicates the simple gesture. He watches as she climbs into the car waiting outside — most likely one of her parents sitting in the driver’s seat — and approaches the door as the vehicle drives away. Flipping the sign from the “open” side to the “closed” side, switching off the lamps illuminating the logo above the front entrance outside, and locking the door, Kuai Liang sets out to make batches of desserts he lost the time for that morning.

* * *

The fridge shuts with a muted thud and the bottle is cold against the palm of his hand. He pops off the cap with the churchkey left on the countertop, listening to the brief hiss of the compression escaping the narrow glass. Kuai Liang brings the open neck to his lips while he crosses the living room, drinking the slightly bitter ale and savoring the taste spreading over his tongue. Cool air rushes into the humble apartment when he pulls open the sliding door, and the gentle breeze is a welcoming feeling as he steps out onto the wooden deck. He leans gently against the railing and takes in the sight before him.

Living on the sixth floor could generally be considered a nuisance, but the nicest advantage of living so high up above the ground is the view of the surrounding neighborhood and city at nighttime, distant lightbulbs glittering like the stars over his head. Looking off to the right, he can spot the exact location of his shoppe. Following the rows of streetlamps gives him the drab roof of the supermarket, the warmly-lit plastic hood hanging over the playground’s slide, the sharp and unkind security lights of the city bank.

Taking another swig from the bottle, he thinks that being unable to escape one’s work environment even when at home would bother most people. Kuai Liang simply cannot find himself to mind it at all.


	2. HANZO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Tuesday. Kuai Liang finds himself enamored with a stranger.

To put it simply, his mornings all begin the same as they do on his bustling Mondays. The stringed instrument’s notes filtering through the alarm’s speakers tend to feel less urgent during the rest of the week, though, and Kuai Liang also gives his sleepy body some leniency in these days. Often he waits for the slivers of sky between the window blinds to fade from a stark black to a hazy cornflower blue, and then does he ease himself off of the mattress just a bit before six in the morning.

Knowing that he has time today to catch up the slack of his workout routine, he sets aside the normal early morning tasks for later and heads toward his bedroom door. He twists the doorknob with one hand while the other works at unclasping the buttons of his nightshirt, shrugging out of it after he is done. The thin fabric joins yesterday’s pajamas in the hamper, all piled upon dirty workshirts and coal-colored trousers. Taking care of the laundry is quickly added to his expansive mental list among the mountain of other responsibilities and obligations he needs to take care of.

Kneeling down onto the floor and lowering his chest close to the ground, he reaches under the plain sofa in search for the door-mounted chin-up bar. His fingertips skim around on the hardwood until it meets cool metal. He grasps the piece of equipment and carries it to the doorway to his bedroom, lifting and securing it atop the lintel of the frame.

He begins with fifteen chin-ups, crossing his legs at the ankles and lifting them for leverage. As he hoists himself upward he breathes in through his nose, holds position, then lets the air rush past his lips as he lowers himself back again. At the end of the set, he places his feet flat on the ground and gives his body pause for thirty seconds, then repeats the set again. And then again.

He does two sets of fifteen pull-ups, bringing his chin down to his chest and lifting his body up until the back of his neck grazes the bar. Returning to the starting position should be gradual so as to not strain the arms. Feeling the burn in his biceps and triceps, he allows for a two minute rest, popping into the kitchen to fill a reusable water bottle with tap water.

Over the next hour Kuai Liang pushes through the remainder of the workout cycle, taking a few breaks in between each cluster of sets to avoid hurting himself. He holds himself on the bar for five sets of three hanging leg raises, straightening his legs parallel with the floor. Rolling out a twenty-four by seventy-two inch mat, he gingerly lays himself down flat on his back and performs two sets of twenty crunches. Onto his stomach and it’s a full minute of planks, thirty standard push-ups, ten one-handed push-ups for each arm.

He returns to his feet for five sets of twenty jumping jacks, interrupting each set to stretch down and touch his toes for a few long moments. After one hundred, he stops and stands, his lungs begging for air as he pants along to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He fans out his fingers and raises them to the ceiling, rising them up as far as they can go, shifting his weight from the balls of his feet onto his toes in a magnificently vertical stance.

Behind him the sun peers past the side of another apartment building, bright sunlight glaring into the sliding glass doorway, each angle of his body casting strikingly distorted shadows across the common room. They look like blackened tendrils creeping up the pallor-toned walls, elongated fingers clamoring upward in search of something, reaching for some sort of unseen desire. All he can feel is the hot ache in his muscles as he exhales from deep in his diaphragm.

* * *

Business is leisurely for most of the day, a few mingling customers whose faces he recognizes coming in primarily around lunch time. One of whom is a weekly regular; she wears nothing but white every time she walks through the doors, donning a large sunhat that shades her eyes and holds her dark hair in its place. Kuai Liang finds her to hold a strange sort of elegance, not just in her pristine fashion choices or the gold jewelry and embellishments adorning her body, but also in the way she carries herself. She prefers either strawberry or mango shaved ice.

Another considerably remarkable person he served came in at around noon. He's a local who doesn't stop by frequently — Kuai Liang only sees him once or twice a month — but has been a patron since he first opened shop about seven years ago. His messy blond hair and the karate gi he typically sports makes him easy to remember. His favorite is the cookies and cream milkshake. It is uncommon, however, for any of his returning customers to order milkshakes or ice cream this early in the day. Lighter desserts are ordered more often before the afternoon, such as shaved ice with flavored syrup or one of his made-from-scratch sorbets.

Eying the tubs of sorbet sitting in the display case in front of him, Kuai Liang counts three that are already halfway gone — more than half of his sorbet selection. He would go to the back and prepare spare batches to replace the ones already in the freezer, but he is out of fresh fruits to make the necessary purée. He'll have to wait for Frost to get out of classes and arrive for her shift before he can leave the shoppe for the supermarket. It's only a few hours away, but he can't rid himself the itch of needing to take care of a task that he has no means of accomplishing.

So, the remainder of his solo shift has consisted of him feeling bored, intermixed with serving customers sporadically, restocking the napkin and straw containers, and sparing curious glances at a college student who has stuck themselves in a lone corner of the dining space, typing fervently on a laptop and chewing on a Dragon's Ice disposable wooden spoon. At around 2 PM, he takes a small paper bowl and fills it with two scoops of the kid's order of chocolate chip cookie dough, sticking a new spoon in the center. He quietly approaches the young adult mindlessly twisting a lock of their hair and places the refill beside the sticker-covered computer. When the student digs in their pocket for what he presumes to be their wallet, Kuai Liang holds up a hand and insists that they take a break. He doesn't think he's ever seen a patron look at him with such thankful eyes.

Give or take an hour later, Frost steps through the door, quickly nodding at Kuai Liang in acknowledgment as she makes a beeline for the restroom, unzipping her backpack as she walks. He throws her a quick smile while she passes him, and he circles around the wall separating the front counter and the kitchen. Behind the commercial mixer is the office, a tiny room that barely manages to fit a desk, a safe, and three lockers for his and Frost’s personal belongings. Opening his, he grabs his wallet and stuffs the leather bi-fold into his back pocket. His cell phone is placed in the other back pocket.

The teenager joins him at his left as he shuts his locker and clicks the combination lock closed. Spinning the three digit combination for her storage compartment, she glances at him and asks, “Market run?”

“Yes. I should be half an hour or so.”

“No problem,” she responds as she rolls up her sleeves, “Tuesdays are slow anyway.” She pauses and then amends her statement with, “Usually.”

Kuai Liang lets out a soft huff of laughter and repeats her clarification, unraveling the apron’s string and lifting the garment over his head before handing it to her. She takes the navy smock without missing a beat, turning around and leaving the office to tend to the counter. Against the wall beside the desk sits the duffel bag and metal dolly, slightly crooked and leaning toward the standing lockers with short stack of wooden trays at its foot. He secures the bag onto his back, taking the dolly and rolling it behind him.

He passes a patron stepping up to the windowed ice cream freezer on his way out, another one he remembers coming in a few times before in the recent past. She greets him quickly and he grins at her, glancing at Frost standing behind the display case before turning back and walking out the door.

The bright afternoon sun is actually an unfamiliar feeling when he begins his trek down the sidewalk. Considering how much time he spends working in the shop or exercising at the apartment, it’s no wonder why his skin is and has been so pallor for years now. On Sundays — a day where he actually has some time for himself — he might take the time to go to the gym or he’ll take the bus to Tomas’ house, but he’s hardly outside. With the weather getting warmer, perhaps he should take up swimming, improve on his cardio. There must be an outdoor pool with lanes somewhere in town.

Temperature-wise, it isn’t very hot — no more than seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit — yet with the blazing sun beating down on his back, his shoulders, his chest, he may as well be inside an oven. His body has never really been able to handle the heat very well. Even when he was a child, the few times it would become hot up in the mountains of his home village, he would always find himself under the shade of a tree or under a store’s awning.

He’s thankful that the market is only a few blocks away and simultaneously dreads having to repeat this errand week after week.

Down a few more blocks sits the bank, and Kuai Liang moves his head to look at the russet bricked building, watching his reflection distort in the tall, tinted windows as he walks past. Turning his gaze forward again can he spot the candy-like colors of the plastic playground just past the grocery store parking lot. There are a gaggle of children — late elementary students at the least — gathering around the swingset; their light-hearted and high-pitched bickering is loud enough to be heard all the way by the market’s entrance.

Inside the store Kuai Liang is instantly welcomed by name, a cashier dressed in greens and whites trying to get his attention with a raised hand. He shouts with a jubilant “Hello” across the lanes of checkout registers. Much like the people who have either paid visits to his shoppe for years or those who simply return on a near weekly basis, Kuai Liang is known by a good portion of the employees here due to his bi-weekly shopping trips.

He tries to make his rounds as quickly as possible — not wanting to keep Frost completely on her own for too long — so he does a giant circle around the store, starting at the fresh produce section. With the bag swung around to his front he packs it with thin plastic containers of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. A net of lemons joins them, then a thin bag filled with mangoes. Wrapped slices of watermelon sit at the top to ensure that the flesh of the fruit doesn’t get crushed and then leak through the cellophane.

Around to the back is an entire wall lined with refrigerators, glass windows showcasing the various dairy products for sale. He fills an entire wooden tray with cartons of heavy cream, squeezing as many as he can fit into the base. Then snaking in between aisles, Kuai Liang stacks the handcart to its fullest capacity with packages of cookies, bags of peanuts without shells, paper sacks of cane sugar, and an entire tray packed with cans of low-fat condensed milk.

Ringing up his purchases is typically a bit cumbersome — crates and fully-stocked duffel bag atop the conveyor belt — but the staff are so familiar with him that they hardly think anything of it. The same employee who greeted him earlier serves him at the register and they make small talk while the brunet man either scans each item or inputs them by quantity. Kuai Liang likes being served by this cashier because of the long scar that curves around the edge of his left cheekbone; his presence makes him feel as if he isn’t so frightening looking.

The two of them say goodbye — “Until next time!” — and Kuai Liang ups his pace as he walks out of the supermarket’s grand front entrance, having to repeatedly excuse himself as he pushes through the thickening cluster of people. He does what he can to avoid running people’s toes over with the wheels of the dolly.

If the heat was bothering him before, it is only getting to him more now that he’s carrying and pushing four days worth of supplies. The weather is, all things considered, primarily temperate throughout the year, but with spring already past its midway point, Kuai Liang can feel summer’s hot arrival fast approaching. Sparse droplets of sweat have found a home on the skin of his forehead, his collar by the time he’s only across the street from his shoppe. With his free hand, he unbuttons the topmost clasp of his shirt to let his skin breathe and hastily crosses the road.

Through the glass door he can see a short line of patrons awaiting service. He steps inside, somehow maneuvering the handcart through the doorway without knocking it into the frame. He only has to spare a glance at Frost briefly for her to lift the countertop gate guarding the back of the creamery, holding it up for him as he passes with his luggage and enters the kitchen.

Craning his head over his shoulder, he calls out, “I will be just a few moments!” From the opposite side of the entryway he hears her reply in affirmation, then quickly speaking to a customer with a short apology. He rests the dolly on its ledge and swivels the bag from his back to his chest, unzipping it. He stocks the fridge back up again as quickly as he can, not being used to the meager crowd congregating at the front at this hour on this day of the week. He has confidence that Frost can handle it on her own, but he isn’t comfortable leaving all the work upon her when he could be providing help.

He is halfway through emptying the contents of the dolly when Frost shouts for his attention. “Boss,” her voice echoes into the kitchen, “there’s another customer that I need your help with.”

“Understood,” he answers, taking the entire tray of heavy cream and pushing it into the reach-in fridge. The condensed milk and the bags upon bags of toppings can wait, so he swiftly picks up his apron from the hook and secures it around his neck. He pulls out the washcloth he keeps in the apron’s pocket and dabs his forehead, ridding it of the sweat thinly layered over the skin.

As he returns to assist his employee, Kuai Liang finds himself halting in place when he meets gazes with the tall man standing on the other side of the ice cream case.

He’s certain that this moment — this sliver of time hitting him like a tidal wave — is exactly what he’s seen a hundred times before in the myriad of clichéd romantic-comedies he’s been forced to watch with Tomas, what he’s heard in the obnoxiously loud pop music playing from the apartment across from his, what he’s been told through ancient folklore and Shakespearean stage plays.

Breaking out of his reverie, he pats the nape of his neck and sloppily folds the rag, sticking it back into the front pocket. He feels clumsy and a bit like a teenaged disaster while he affixes the rope around his waist again, all awkward and jumbled limbs. Standing up straight, he looks the newcomer dead in the eyes and asks, “How can I help you?”

The man is just about his own height, maybe little less than an inch shorter, though his long hair pulled up in a high ponytail does give the illusion that the height difference doesn’t exist at all. A few strands at his hairline fall forward onto his brow, the strands too short to be properly pulled back. Flat nose, sharp cheekbones, almond eyes, trimmed but dark beard along his jaw — he’s undeniably handsome, and he looks back at Kuai Liang with a strange expression pulling at his lips that Kuai Liang is certain he’s reading wrong.

They’re strangers, after all.

The man blinks a few times as if he’s trying to snap himself out of something, then opens his mouth to speak. “I apologize if I made you rush,” he says, his voice lower than what Kuai Liang honestly expected.

“Please think nothing of it. What would you like?” he brushes off in response, absent-mindedly adjusting the name tag pinned to the right breast of his apron. When the customer sways it is only then that Kuai Liang notices the tiny body next to him. He peers over the top of the case just slightly and sees a young child no older than six or seven, chin length hair pulled back from his face, all teeth and smiles and practically bouncing where he stands.

The long-haired man bends his knees to pick up the child and Kuai Liang stares a bit too intensely at how the muscles of his arms flex beneath the thin fabric of his cotton, three-button shirt. He situates the child onto his hip, giving him a better view of the tubs as well as the descriptive labels plastered across the top of the display case. Little hands skirt across the surface of the glass, the child leaning forward to read all the flavors’ names.

Kuai Liang thinks that he should be paying more attention to the child and his choice of ice cream, but he finds himself unable to tear his eyes away from the man holding the boy, watching the soft smile form his lips as he looks at the young one’s wonderment. Soon the child points a tiny finger at the mint chocolate chip label at the top, softly exclaiming, “This one!”

Kuai Liang finally turns his gaze back to the child, giving him a smile before asking, “Would you like a cone or a bowl?” Without missing a beat, the excited boy chooses the former; when Kuai Liang asks how many scoops, the man answers instead, stating just one. A pout appears on the boy’s face at that. In the back corner Frost prepares a milkshake for one of the customers she is serving, filling the shoppe with a quiet yet present humming sound.

As Kuai Liang picks up the steel utensil and scoops up some of the mint chocolate chip ice cream, he feels too compelled to make small talk — something he is not oft to do on his own accord. “I have not seen a completely new customer walk in here in...” he pauses, lifting a cone off of the stack to his left as he ponders, then continues, “a very long time. What brings you two here now?”

Still holding the child securely against his side, the man follows him with his eyes as he says, “We have never explored this side of town until today.” He looks at the child again and asks, “Isn’t that right, Takeda?” The boy — “Takeda,” he commits to memory — shakes his head no, pursing his lips together in a thin line but not quite removing the grin from his mouth.

As the scoop of green dessert settles atop the cone, the blender running behind Kuai Liang shuts off, slowing to a grinding halt and allowing the gentle melodies playing over the speakers to saturate the air around them. Takeda asks the man — his father? Kuai Liang doesn’t know — if he can have toppings with it, too, and the man says that he may. Takeda gets chocolate syrup and chocolate sprinkles.

Kuai Liang hands the child his cone, being careful to ensure that his little hands grip onto it properly. While the man sets Takeda down onto his own feet, Kuai Liang inquires, “And what would you like?” He is suddenly very conscious at how often or how rarely he is blinking, how quickly he is speaking, how awkward his hands feel when he isn’t doing anything with them.

“Oh,” the man says, seemingly surprised at the question as he returns his gaze, “nothing for me.”

“I insist,” the words coming out without him even thinking about it, “you will not regret it.” In the edge of his vision he can see Frost slightly turn her head toward her boss, furrowing her brows. The people she was serving have already left the shoppe, her fingers organizing the bills in the register stopping as she waits to see how this is going to unfold.

“I am... I’m not a fan of ice cream,” the customer barely stammers, not looking so much uncomfortable but rather just embarrassed with his lips pulling in a tight, possibly flustered smile.

Kuai Liang never — as a general rule — presses a patron to purchase something, but he cannot stop himself from spitting out words like the fool he feels like and is making himself out to be. He folds his hands at his front and continues, “We offer more than just ice cream. Does a milkshake sound appealing? Or sorbet? Coconut-based ice cream?”

Frost is staring at him dead on now, and he knows that she is repeating the word “idiot” over and over in her head, but he can’t find himself to care in the moment. He watches the way the man’s face shifts with each suggestion, none of them really garnering a response. When he mentions shaved ice, however, the stranger’s eyebrows raise and Kuai Liang takes that as a sign that he found the man’s favorite.

Distractedly the man scratches at the side of his neck, glancing down at Takeda who looks up at him with wide eyes, corners of his mouth messy with mint-colored ice cream. Dropping his arm he looks back at Kuai Liang and tells him, “I failed to see the flavor I like on your menu, so I decided to not bother.” He nods up toward the menu hanging on the back wall of the building before elaborating, “Most places here don’t carry it.”

“Try me.”

The scoff coming from Frost is audible. The man lets out a defeated chuckle, his laugh mostly just a huff of air. “Do you have plum?”

Kuai Liang turns on his heel to head for the cabinets in the kitchen, feeling like a total fool and loving every minute of it. He’s so used to routine, to formality that this mere stranger has turned him into an unprofessional mess, but if it means having the man return sometime in the near future, then it is all worth it. “Liang,” he mumbles to himself as he pulls out the quart of plum-flavored syrup, “you’re a smitten idiot.”

He leaves the kitchen and steps in front of the shaved ice machine, shoveling cubes from the icebox into the top of the hand crank device. Stretching his arm behind Frost’s head, he grabs one of the paper cups stacked beside the register and ignores the glare she points at him. He fills the container to its maximum, forming a soft knoll of shaved ice with a few gentle taps of the cup on the counter. Gingerly drizzling the syrup over the top, he turns around and holds the dessert out as if he achieved an ultimate victory.

The man stares at him for a few moments and doing that amused, defeated laugh again before taking the cup. Taking a wooden spoon from the container in front of the register, he has his first taste of the ice. His expression grows from sheepishness into pleasantly surprised, rolling the treat around in his mouth before swallowing. “Thank you,” he says, “it reminds me of home.”

Kuai Liang refrains himself from saying or asking anything else that will earn him another skin-burning, accusing scowl from his only employee and instead settles with “I am glad.”

For probably the first time he has been in the shoppe, the customer addresses Frost and requests his due payment. Her expression blank, she says, “It’ll be six even.” The man pulls out a wallet from his — oh, god — tight jeans and sifts through the bills inside, taking out the exact cost of his and Takeda’s purchase. As Frost places the notes in the cash register, Kuai Liang sees the man pull out a few more dollars and fold them into the tip jar.

He reaches out for the boy’s hand and together they exit the creamery, leaving just its owner and single employee alone inside. Kuai Liang cannot help himself watching the two of them walk down the sidewalk, and the ridiculous smile on his face only becomes more face-splittingly wide when the man turns around to see him just one more time through the window.

* * *

Before Frost leaves for the night — apron already hung up, backpack supported onto her shoulders — she stands at the kitchen entryway and fixes a long stare at her employer. Kuai Liang turns to her, holding a carton of heavy cream in mid-pour as if he got caught doing something he shouldn’t have.

An uncomfortable silence blankets over them until she breaks it as she asks, “What the hell was that?”

Kuai Liang glances to the side. He looks back at her and states, “I do not know what you are referring to.”

Exasperated, she shifts her gaze over to the floor and widens her eyes incredulously before walking away, making her leave out of the creamery. He shuts off the mixer and sets the carton on a nearby counter, digging out the keys from his pocket as he follows behind her. They trade the usual goodbyes and farewells, he watches her climb into the family car, he switches all the lights off, and locks the door in the same manner he has done them hundreds of times.

He needs to take inventory and do a few test runs of possible “flavors of the week” for next month before he can head home, so he returns to stand at the mixer and create a small portion of his ice cream base. As he resumes working, however, he finds himself horribly distracted. Kuai Liang unceremoniously plants his forehead on the mixer after he’s shut it off again. All he can think about is the stranger with beautiful hair and nice arms that he met today, and he just cannot wipe the stupid grin off of his face.


	3. JOHNNY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Wednesday. It seems like new and fascinating customers are becoming more common lately.

For most, Wednesday is the midweek hump, but for Kuai Liang it is not until the day after that he feels the stretch of the workweek getting to him. Prior to noon, this day is particularly slow in comparison to the insurgence of customers during the lunch hour, people from all sorts of professions stopping by for a few spoonfuls of sugar to power themselves for the rest of the day.

There’s no single demographic that frequents his shoppe more than others. Teenagers don’t come close to being the most common type of customer — something he didn’t expect when he first started, knowing that a high school is only a mile or so away — and adults are typically bringing their children with them, save for a few of his longest regulars.

On top of that, there are only one or two well-known individuals who have walked through that glass door, and the only one who returns on a routine basis is Raiden, a local weatherman who anyone can spot with little issue provided they have seen his strikingly white hair during the morning forecast. Aside from him, Kuai Liang has not had anyone of particularly high-profile come into his shoppe.

Which must be why the customer stepping inside today had to be the most famous of all of his customers so far, right?

The man saunters through with one hand tucked in a pants pocket and the other gingerly holding onto a much smaller palm. A young child bounces along beside him, fair hair done up in pigtails and pink sneakers lightly tapping along the tiled floor as they approach the front. The combination of gelled brown hair, sunglasses, and a strong jaw strike a sense of familiarity in Kuai Liang, but he cannot place exactly where he has seen this person in the past. He’s almost certain he isn’t a returning customer.

The stranger removes the sleek sunglasses with his unoccupied hand and tucks one of the arms, hanging the accessory onto the dip of his v-neck shirt. The garment cuts low enough that Kuai Liang can see the top halves of solid black, serif-font letters, but the text is so large that he cannot even guess what the tattoo reads.

“Hey, how are ya?” the man asks, throwing a smug — though likely not intentionally self-righteous — smile at him, carrying the stature of someone who has a neverending supply of self-confidence. It practically radiates off of him.

“I am well. How are you, and what may I get for you?”

“Fantastic,” he replies easily. He ducks his head down to look at the small child standing to his left, jiggling his grip on her hand slightly, and questions, “Wanna go first, punkin?” She nods her head eagerly, stout ponytails on either side of her head swinging about with vigor.

While the man lifts up the girl to allow her to get a better view of the selection, Kuai Liang doesn’t find himself staring at the flex of biceps and triceps underneath thin cotton fabric as he had done the day prior, rather watching the sparkling wonder in the child’s eyes. It isn’t to say that this customer isn’t handsome, but Kuai Liang has never really become so... drawn towards a complete stranger like he had with the man from yesterday.

He merely wishes he had a chance to learn his name.

The child clasps onto her father — once again, an assumption — more than Takeda did with the black-haired stranger, resting her head against the cocky man’s chest as she gazes at the colorful array of ice cream and sorbet in front of her. While she decides the man tells her, “You can have anything you want, sweetheart.” He talks to her with such strong adoration lining his tone that makes it almost effortless to tell how much he loves this adorable child; the man is so easy to read and it honestly just makes him more charming than he probably knows he is.

Kuai Liang pays close attention to where her wide eyes travel, catching her focus on the pink ice cream speckled with tiny red chunks of strawberries before she speaks up. Her voice is cute — he cannot deny it to himself — when she looks at him gleefully and declares, “A scoop of strawberry, please!”

Her grin is contagious, causing one to spread across Kuai Liang’s face when he asks, “Cone or bowl?”

“Cone!” she declares solidly, volume a bit high. While he works at scooping up the dessert of her choice, the child’s father gently shushes her, reminding her to be careful of how loud she is speaking. Kuai Liang mentally thanks himself for being level-headed today and not starting unnecessary — and clearly desperate — smalltalk with his customers, as well as Frost still being in class at this hour so she doesn’t shoot more daggers through the side of his skull with her glares.

The young girl has simple tastes and only gets rainbow bead sprinkles on the pastel-colored scoop when he asks her which toppings she would like. She mutters a few quiet words of gratitude, taking the cone with both hands as Kuai Liang holds it out to her. The man continues to hold her as she begins to nibble on the treat, seemingly unworried if any of the ice cream gets on his navy shirt, which it most certainly will at some point.

Kuai Liang repeats the same question to the customer, wiping the steel scoop on a damp washcloth to get rid of any strawberry lingering on the utensil.

“Regular chocolate, two scoops,” he holds up two fingers as he continues, “but in the large bowl, please.”

The order is only odd in the sense that two scoops can easily fit in the small-sized paper bowl provided they’re stacked atop one another, but Kuai Liang thinks little of it. He carves out both scoops and presses them side-by-side in the wide cup with practiced motions, pushing the ball of ice cream out of the tool with the edge of his thumb.

“And what toppings would you like?”

“Everything.”

There’s a strange hush that settles over the three of them, Kuai Liang stopping mid-rise in his straightening up from bending over the open freezer, looking up at the man with raised eyebrows. He has had customers request every topping in the past, but it was always with a chuckle or a laugh that meant the person was joking. This time, however, his patron is completely serious, staring back at him as if the order isn't something to react the least bit surprised to.

Kuai Liang glances over at the child and she is completely absorbed in eating her ice cream cone, not even pausing to see his reaction to what "everything" would be, like it were a normal occurrence.

The man shifts his eyes from the bowl back to Kuai Liang's face, silently telling him that that is what he he is actually ordering. Kuai Liang’s lips have gone from an upturn at the corners to a tight line and he makes himself turn around to the topping containers sitting on the shelves staggered against the back wall.

He begins shoveling small amounts of every topping he has available — chopped peanuts, cookie crumbs, gummy worms, four different types of sprinkles, candy-coated chocolates, mini marshmallows, banana chips, dried papaya chunks — and with each new addition atop the ice cream, he can feel himself becoming ill. Shaking the cooled can of whipped cream, he then sprays a swirl of it at the peak of the mountain-like pile of garnishes, color dyes of the sprinkles bleeding into the bottom of the white cream.

As he drizzles both chocolate and caramel syrups in a cross-hatched pattern over the entire contents of the bowl, he tries to imagine eating this entire thing and all it brings him is a uncomfortable churning in his stomach. He definitely has a sweet tooth — he has to for this job — but nothing like this. The maraschino cherry as a finishing touch is like the final straw on the camel’s back, and he just hopes that he will never have to prepare something like this again.

If there is one thing Kuai Liang takes pride in that isn’t his skill in frozen dessert making, it would be his ability to keep composure and not show too much emotion his face — well, perhaps not considering yesterday. He hands the mess of an ice cream order to the man standing at the other side of the counter, who is licking his lips at the prospect of digging into it and completely unaware of the sugar-induced disgust of his server.

Kuai Liang gives him the total — the man’s bowl alone is nearly doubled in price due to the sheer number toppings — and he glances at the man’s wallet as he pays, noticing a thick stack of notes that aren’t composed of singles or fives, but mostly twenties and fifties. He has no idea who this stranger is, but he definitely doesn’t seem to be struggling in the financial area. Kuai Liang still can’t shake the feeling that he has seen this other man’s face before, searching for the origin of the memory and coming up with nothing.

The young girl pulls at her father’s hand and leads him towards a table to sit at, while Kuai Liang tends to a customer who had just walked in. A quick and easy order, there is no request for a mountain of toppings and therefore no involuntary discomfort at thought of consuming immense amounts of sweetened foods. He spares a few glances over to the duo sitting at a circular table, specifically to see how much and how quickly the man has eaten so far.

Soon the afternoon lull fills the shoppe and it’s as if there aren’t any people passing by the sidewalks, let alone chiming their arrival into the creamery with the ring of the doorbell. Aside from the father and daughter pair, there is only one other patron seated in the modestly-sized building, hunched over a laptop at the bar by the window. They have been typing away for a while, the ticks and tacks of their keyboard sounding even to the back of the room, completely consumed in whatever they are working on. Kuai Liang tries to busy himself with something else — refilling the candy containers, cleaning equipment, running the ice machine — but it doesn’t take long for him to be interrupted.

“Hey,” the voice calls, “ice cream dude!”

He twists the upper half of his body to look behind him, being met with not just Every-Topping Man waving him over but also the bubbly child, both with wide smiles and even wider eyes. It’s rare for him to feel meek or shy, but suddenly Kuai Liang feels out of place and he isn’t sure how to respond; customers never holler for his attention.

They begin to wave more rigorously the longer he fails to make some kind of movement. With a deep inhale, he succumbs to their urging and circles around the counter, wiping his hands on the apron of the day — sky blue adorned with a patterned design of repeating fudgiscles and vanilla ice cream cones — as he steps up to their table. Plainly, he asks, “Yes?”

“You should sit with us for a bit,” the man says, taking a spoonful of whipped cream, sprinkles, and gummy worms into his mouth afterward. Kuai Liang’s eyebrows raise without him thinking about it, parting his lips and getting ready to deny the invitation when he’s beaten to it, the stranger continuing, “You look like you could use a break.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I am the only person tending the counter at the moment and—”

“Oh, come on!” the man speaks up again, chuckling as he adds, “You’ve got legs. We won’t care if you have get up in like two minutes; just join us for a few. You look like you’ve been standing all day.”

Well, he isn’t wrong — the soreness the balls of his feet isn't any better or worse than it usually is. Kuai Liang can’t help feeling that he wouldn’t be doing his job properly if he sat out in the middle of it when there a customers still in the dining area. He tries once more to politely decline when his stomach chooses the most opportune time to rumble in hunger.

“You got a lunch?” the man asks, and Kuai Liang resigns as he nods, turning around to head for the kitchen. Pulling open the door, he reaches inside the fridge for the reusable bottle of chilled water, tucking it under his arm before grabbing the soft lunch cooler. He guides the door closed with his foot, listening for a soft thud as a sign of its closing and then returning to the table.

The stranger follows him with his eyes as Kuai Liang pulls out a chair directly across from him and sits down. While he scoots forward in his seat, the customer holds out his right hand and says, “Nice to meet ya,” pausing to glance at the cyan name tag affixed to the apron and then finishing, “Kuai Liang. Name’s Johnny.”

Kuai Liang reaches out to reciprocate the welcoming gesture with a firm grip, replying, “Likewise, Johnny.”

They separate from the handshake and Johnny shifts the same hand to pat the tabletop in front of the girl, doing the introduction for her. “And this is my daughter, Cassie.”

Cassie replicates her father, sticking her tiny hand out for a handshake. Kuai Liang grips onto her hand softly and notes both how petite her fingers are and also how sticky the skin is from the strawberry cone she’s been eating. Her grasp can only reach around a couple of his digits, but perhaps that’s mostly because he has always been considered a large person.

“Short for Cassandra, I assume?” he inquires, giving her hand a few shakes and letting go. She nods, pink smears framing her mouth and droplets to match stuck on the curve of her chin. Johnny takes a napkin and dabs her face clean as Kuai Liang expresses pleasure meeting her. She laughs a tiny laugh and it is so precious.

Kuai Liang reverts his attention back to his lunch, and both Johnny and Cassie continue to indulge in their ice cream. As he unclips and opens the carrying bag, emptying the contents onto the space before him, he admits, “A customer has never invited me to sit with them until you.”

Johnny perks up at that with the spoon still in his mouth, licking the wooden utensil clean and then replying, “Really?” Kuai Liang nods as he sets the bag onto the ground beside his chair, humming in affirmation. “That’s a bummer, cause you seem like a cool dude.”

“What makes you say so?” Kuai Liang wonders, popping off the lid of a plastic container and picking up the sandwich composed of mantou bread and layers of cold cut meats inside. Homemade, just like what he ate growing up.

“Well, my wife works with this dude named Kenshi who is the roommate of a guy who came into your shoppe yesterday,” Johnny explains, but it does little to answer the question. He must have seen the blank expression on Kuai Liang’s face, so he elaborates, “He’s a Japanese guy, long black hair, always keeps it in a ponytail? Had a kid with him?”

Kuai Liang instantly realizes who exactly this man is talking about, and he tries his hardest not to verbally say “oh!” in surprise or let himself become too excited about learning more about the handsome stranger who threw him completely off-guard. “Yes, I know who you are talking about now. He was very kind and patient with my foolishness yesterday,” he says, chuckling at himself remembering it.

“Hanzo Hasashi?” Johnny asks incredulously. “There’s no way you could be acting like an idiot and that guy was patient with you,” he digs into his bowl at the end of his sentence, scooping another spoonful of anything but chocolate ice cream.

_Hanzo Hasashi._

Kuai Liang repeats the name over and over in his head, letting each syllable float through his synapses like a warming melody, like a song he once heard yet cannot remember when or where it met his ears. It is so nice to have a proper title for the man he met the day prior and he cannot stop the flutter he feels in his chest and the air that rushes his lungs.

“Dad, I think Master Hanzo just doesn’t like you,” Cassie interjects. Johnny looks over at her, staring for a moment with an unreadable expression before he purses his lips and nods in agreement after considering it. Kuai Liang takes a bite out of his sandwich finally, chewing with purpose as he sets the food back down and wiping his hands on the apron covering his lap.

“So, what did he say of me?” he questions, impolite with food still in his mouth.

Johnny shrugs while he swallows more of the concoction made almost entirely of toppings and says, “Just that he really liked his snowcone or whatever he got. Takeda also kept talking to Cassie about how good his ice cream was when we got together for dinner last night.”

“Is that why you arrived here today?”

“Yeah,” Johnny pauses to stuff his mouth once again, “and they weren’t lying. This is great.”

Kuai Liang softly expresses his gratitude and the three of them fall into a comfortable silence, interrupted only by the sounds of a spoon scraping against paper or a pair of chopsticks lightly tapping together. He lets his thoughts escape him as he munches on some cold chayote.

The child that was with Hanzo could very well be his son, but it is also easily possible that Takeda isn’t and instead — what name did he say? — Kenshi’s child. Then what is their relationship? If they were brothers, he feels that Johnny would have said as such, or mention that Hanzo was Takeda’s uncle. Instead, he said “roommate” and that could mean almost anything — they could simply be friends or they could be dating — and Kuai Liang understands better than most that sometimes you cannot out other people or be out yourself. It is either unsafe or just not worth a plethora of uncomfortable questions.

He feels an unfamiliar and unwarranted sense of dread at the idea of Hanzo already being the partner of someone else, be it with Kenshi or with someone who isn’t... masculine. In truth, he does not quite understand why he’s latched himself onto a person he’s knows next to nothing about and whose name he had only just learned a few minutes ago, but he has.

He wants to stop thinking about it, at least for now.

“So, Johnny,” he says in an attempt to steer his thoughts away from something less distressing, “I cannot help but feel that I have seen you before, even though you have even said this is your first time here.”

That cheeky smile appears on his face again and Johnny jests, “Oh, you probably have.”

From the corners of his vision Kuai Liang sees Cassie practically bouncing in her seat, and when he turns to her she proudly exclaims, “Dad’s Johnny Cage, the movie star!”

“And Cassie here is my biggest fan,” Johnny says, squeezing her cheek between his thumb and forefinger. She giggles aloud and gives him a peppy “Uh-huh!” in response.

Kuai Liang huffs a laugh through his nose as he raises his water bottle to his mouth, taking a quick sip, and then says, “That is most likely why, though I cannot recall what movie specifically.”

Johnny lists a plethora of film titles — Ninja Mime, Massive Strike, Citizen Cage, Tommy Scissorfists, Aquatic Assault, on and on — yet none of them sound familiar at all, Kuai Liang shaking his head “no” after each name. He loses count at some point, but after most likely twenty or so Johnny gives up, deciding that whatever Kuai Liang saw was probably one of his more obscure pictures that he can’t even remember the name of.

* * *

Sometime after the post-dinner customer influx, he wavers in his work at cleaning one of the blender jars and peers over at Frost, busied with reading a thin, paperback textbook while mindlessly wiping down tables with a washcloth. The evening streetlamp light filtering through the windows illuminates the tips of her hair and transforms the color from a powder blue to a gentle gold, reminding him of candlelight in a strange way.

“Frost,” he calls out loud enough for her to hear without turning around, “have you ever heard of Johnny Cage?”

The faint squeaking of cloth against the glossy tabletop stops and he’s sure she’s looking at the back of his head when she replies, “The actor?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, he’s been in some pretty bad kung fu movies,” she answers and Kuai Liang finds himself chuckling at her response.

“He came into the shoppe today with his daughter.”

She snorts and continues cleaning, closing her book and tossing it on a dry table beside her as she says, “I don’t believe you.”

“Have I ever lied to you?” he questions as he cranes his neck enough for him to see her over his shoulder. “He has brunet hair, cut short and styled with some type of product. The tattoo on his chest reads his own name.”

He asked Johnny about that before he left and he’s sure he won’t ever forget how easily the man just took off his entire shirt in the middle of the shoppe to show it off. Johnny also left with a promise to come back again soon, Cassie agreeing with the pledge joyfully. Kuai Liang is looking forward to it, though he would prefer Johnny doesn't rip off his shirt again next time.

Frost scoffs, “Actors, weathermen, martial artists, shady men in cowboy hats, and guys who still thank you for pushing them into buying something.” She points her gaze at him accusingly and states, “You get some weird customers, boss.”

Being the target of yet another glare, he comes to the decision that he shouldn’t bring up his discovery of Hanzo’s name — knowing that she would reprimand him further for his uncharacteristic behavior yesterday — and instead meanders to the register, taking the tip jar in hand and sifting through the bills inside. It’s mostly filled with loose change and a few one dollar notes, but among the folded bills is a hefty twenty, and Kuai Liang knows exactly who left it there.

He grins as he dumps the contents of the jar onto a clean spot on the counter and begins splitting the earnings into respective piles for both Frost and himself. While he drags coins across the stone countertops and crinkles bank notes into neat folded stacks, he makes a mental note to make a batch of green tea ice cream for Tomas tonight before he heads home. His dear friend is owed a visit.


	4. TOMAS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Thursday. Kuai Liang visits an old friend.

By the time the conclusion of his shift is drawing nearer, Kuai Liang can feel the bore of the Thursday work hours weighing down his shoulders. Frost also looks bored to near death as she blankly stares at a journal of notes at the register, leaning against the metal and plastic device with her elbow and thumbing through the pages mindlessly. Night has already fallen and only slivers of pinks and oranges glimmer in the clouds as darkness began to absorb any daylight remaining.

Customers come and go in sparse numbers during the final few hours before closing time. While Frost occupies herself with studying and homework at the frost, Kuai Liang roams into the kitchen in between servicing patrons to take inventory and prepare a few batches of replacement ice cream tubs. If it weren’t for the strange stagnancy of Thursday evenings, he would have to do post-closing duties at their regular times, but on these days he is able to garner a little more time off of work instead.

Thursdays also signal Frost leaving earlier than any other day of the week, changing her shirt and packing up her school supplies into her backpack well before the shoppe closes. She stuffs her half of today’s tips into her wallet clutch and turns around right after, bidding farewell with a wave over her shoulder. Kuai Liang doesn’t bother waving back — she doesn’t have eyes on the back of her head — as she leaves, but he does call out “Goodbye!” from the counter.

A meager handful of people walk in after she ends her shift, three of which are considerably noteworthy. One is a man that he has had on numerous but infrequent occasions, his thin mustache and completely bald head making him easy to spot. He sees some of his own facial features in this other person and it would not surprise him to find out that they are both from mainland China, but considering the customer’s uncomfortable and possibly dangerous posture, Kuai Liang keeps discussion down to a minimum. He tends to get vanilla coconut ice cream.

The others — completely new to his ice cream parlor — arrive as a pair. One is a hulking man who stood several inches taller than Kuai Liang, dressed in ragged, earth-toned clothing that appears much too small for his gargantuan body. Standing far below his height ahead of him is a woman, stout hair tied up in a high ponytail that caused her locks to billow out in spikes. She wore similar clothing to his and they were both of unequal but definitely ambiguous ages. The only one who spoke a word was the sprite-like woman, but her speech was limited to the bare minimum, high-pitched and hard to listen to. They purchased two large bowls of sea-salt caramel.

Right before 8pm, he serves a young couple a single chocolate milkshake and follows after them to switch off the neon open signs and lock the door behind them. As the two teenaged girls leave, the swishing, brunette ponytail of one of them reminds him of Hanzo for a brief moment, and he rests his forehead against the cool glass in amused exasperation.

This has happened to him a few times today, where a single aspect of someone — long and dark hair, almond eyes, sharp cheekbones, toned arms — throws his mind back to that afternoon on Tuesday, dumbstruck and awkward limbs and sweaty hands. Really, he should have expected it to happen just one more time before his day was over.

He’s so lovestruck and he simply cannot fathom how hard he has fallen.

With a defeated sigh, he pushes himself off of the door and heads toward the kitchen, trying to focus his thoughts very intently on deep fried ice cream and taking the late night bus downtown. He runs a hand through his hair, scraping his nails gently across the scalp and relishing the tingle it brings all the way down his neck. Scatterbrained is not what he has been since his meeting Hanzo. Perhaps being just occasionally distracted is a more... efficient way to describe his mindset recently.

He would say that spending time with his long-time friend will allow him his mind wander off to a place that has nothing to do with work, but he is fully aware that Tomas is going to have a field day over how much a fool Kuai Liang made of himself two days prior.

Running the routine in his head, the first step is to go to the back of the kitchen and open up the cabinet beneath one of the steel counters. Amidst some shaved ice syrup jugs and a bag of chopped peanuts sits a stockpot, filled with a bottle of canola oil, a box of bread crumbs, and a slotted metal spoon. He grabs the medium pot by its handles and places it atop the hot plate on one of the counters, emptying the contents and setting them to the side.

Taking the bottle of oil in hand, he twists open the cap and pours a generous amount into the pot. The cap goes back onto the bottle, the hot plate is switched on, and with some digging around in another cabinet, two bowls and a plate are settle onto the counter. Opening the freezer and reaching inside, he pulls out a blank pint-sized container, pushed to the very back of the appliance. Inside the fridge he grabs a single egg from the carton with his other hand.

The concept of deep-frying ice cream was completely new to Kuai Liang just a few years ago, when Tomas described his discovery of the dessert at the town’s carnival one summer. Knowing full well of what his friend is best at, Tomas implored him to attempt deep-frying some of his own ice cream and he has been preparing this dish at least once a month since.

The process is surprisingly simple, though primarily time-consuming due to the need of returning the scoops of ice cream back to freezer so that the breading may harden. He tried it for himself the first time he had made it, but found himself not caring for it much at all — not particularly a fan of fried foods — and determined that he’s totally satisfied with serving it for someone else.

Kuai Liang fills the larger bowl with the plain bread crumbs and cracks an egg into the smaller bowl. Digging around in an utensil drawer for one of the few forks he keeps in the kitchen, the combination of wood and metal tools clatters loudly as it echoes in the hard-edged room, and he brushes his fingertips across one hidden beneath a silicone spatula and an ice cream scoop. With it he whisks the egg white and yolk until it combines into a pale yellow soup, tossing the shell into a nearby trashcan and placing the fork into the sink.

He repeats the same procedure three times: scoop out the matcha ice cream, coat it evenly with the egg, spin it around in the breading and pack it like a snowball to even out the sphere shape, then set it onto the plate. The trio of ice cream balls sit in the freezer for an additional ten minutes while he waits for the oil to heat up further.

It has been over two weeks from the last time he saw his closest — and honestly only — friend in person. They talk on the phone time to time, but Kuai Liang finds that he prefers sitting side-by-side together on the couch or taking a stroll around town than carrying a conversation apart from one another. Usually they don’t have much trouble with their work schedules not syncing with one another, but for sixteen or so days, Tomas’ hours have been during the nighttime and Kuai Liang has been so absorbed in his dessert-making that he loses track of time.

He could do for a proper break off work.

On Thursday evenings, when his friend is also free, he allows himself a breather from his responsibilities and therefore sacrifices his lunch hour on Fridays to make a quick run to the supermarket for supplies. It’s probably the only time he’ll skip out from the job he earnestly, whole-heartedly loves; he can’t think of another situation where he would put off work for something else.

Filling the sink with water, he hand washes the scoops and malt cups to pass the time. The sponge squeaks against the metal as he wipes it clean of any milk or cream still sticking to the surface, sounds of splashing liquid filling the room as he drops the dishes back into the deep basin.

After putting them on a wooden rack to dry, he returns to the freezer and pulls out the plain white plate. One at a time, he carefully lowers each scoop into the pot of oil and they sizzle with great intensity. A few droplets spray onto his hand and he flinches away, sucking his teeth at the brief searing sensation on the tender skin of his wrist. The third ball joins the other two and they all float in the bubbling fluid. Kuai Liang checks his arm for any sign of burning, but he appears fine. It's this part that reminds him why he doesn't care much for fried food.

With the slotted spoon he turns the dessert around, ensuring that they all color evenly to a golden brown. They fry quickly, and as soon as he sunk them into the pot they’re being taken out again. Moving diligently, he lets the ice cream cool down as he cleans up the counters, pouring the leftover bread crumbs back into the box and dumping the remainder of beat egg into the sink. He switches the hotplate off and listens to the oils slowly transform to a quiet simmer.

He searches for the lid for the stockpot in a storage cabinet — pushed to the side and hidden from view by boxes of sandwich cookies — and reunites it with its counterpart, sealing the oil to cool down and be stored away tomorrow morning. Taking a spare container from the stack of the large-sized paper cups near the back of the kitchen, Kuai Liang stacks the scoops of ice cream into it and covers it with a plastic dome cap.

Mumbling under his breath the list of things to do before he takes his leave, he pops into the office to grab his wallet, his phone, and his cardigan from the tall locker inside. He also grabs his emptied lunch cooler before closing the door behind him and locking it, tossing the thin sweater over his shoulder and holding the lunchbox between his knees.

Apron becomes untied, lifted off over his head, and hooked onto the rack to be worn another day. The bowl of ice cream is placed inside the lunchbox, the grey cardigan is hung over his non-dominant arm, the lights are turned off, and the front door is locked from the outside as the streetlamp lights up the keyhole for him to see what he is doing. 

He pulls out his phone to check the time and deduces that he can make it in time for the usual route if he jogs his way to the bus stop. He just hopes he isn't late.

* * *

His side of town isn’t necessarily desolate, but in comparison to the center of the humble city, it may as well be. Stepping out of the bus and glad to be off of those uncomfortable seats after thirty minutes, he takes in a breath of fresh air and revels in the various aroma of restaurants floating down the street. The breeze caresses his cheekbones, but it is barely even close to being considered “cold” to Kuai Liang.

Downtown is considerably lively for a city as small as this one, a constant and steady stream of people wandering down the delicately stone-paved streets at any time of day, any time of the week, any time of the year, even during the colder seasons. On weeknights, the crowd dies down and almost vanishes entirely by 11 PM, but on Friday and Saturday, the congregation of life both young and old are out as late as 3 AM.

As he heads west, blending into the clusters of people following the same path, he gazes upward to take in the details of the buildings towering above him, glass window panes reflecting the glow of streetlamps staggered between blooming crabapple trees. This strip never fails to look beautiful when Kuai Liang takes the time to visit, but it is especially a sight to behind during the holiday season when stringed lights adorn the naked trees as if to replace their missing leaves with shining bulbs.

To be truthful, anything to do with the holiday season is what he looks forward to most each year, if only to be surrounded by snow and chilly air.

But for as gorgeous as the downtown area is, he is glad that he does not live here nor that his shoppe is located among the rows and rows of boutiques and eateries and offices wedged against one another. For other frozen dessert parlors — particularly those belonging to a chain — the high concentration of customers being served is not much of a concern, but for his tiny business, it would be unthinkable to keep up with.

He is fine with just visiting from time to time. It is much too busy for his liking.

His destination is not far from the bus stop and it only takes him several minutes of strolling down the sidewalk to be met by the smell of burning tobacco and fruit-flavored vapor liquids. Outside, the smoke shop is humble, nothing too fancy or especially eye-catching as compared to the stores adjoining it. Inside is more impressive, walls lined with smoking accessories and countless types of tobacco packed into petite paper boxes or rounded tin canisters the size of one's palm.

Before walking into the shop it's possible to pick out a few scents floating through the open doorway, but once inside it’s like standing directly in front of a lifted floodgate. The air is dense, near suffocating if one doesn’t anticipate it properly, but after a few moments the intensity subsides and the variety of scents actually becomes quite pleasant — provided one doesn’t mind the smell of tobacco.

To his right stands two customers conversing with one of the employees whose face he knows but name he does not. Aside from his friend standing at the glass counters straight ahead of him, the store is otherwise empty, unsurprisingly so considering the hour. Kuai Liang has never been to the shop at any earlier time in the day, so the vacant nature in the spacious room is not unexpected, though he wonders what it looks like when it’s at its busiest.

The digital chime of a bell announces his arrival for him. From behind the display cases Tomas looks up from the array of smoking pipes and the transformation of mild boredom to elation is obvious, all bright eyes and full smiles. Tomas has always been excited at the sight of his closest friend after a period of absence ever since they were just children, and today seems to be of no exception.

“Liang,” he calls out as Kuai Liang walks closer to the front desk, “it’s been some time!”

A smile spreads on his face that nearly equals his companion’s, saying, “Yes, it has. For us, at least.”

“And I see you’ve brought something with you?” Tomas peers past the display case to see the lunchbox in Kuai Liang’s hand, trying and failing to remove the grin pulling at his lips, knowing full well what sits inside the soft carrier. To Tomas, the ice cream is likely the figurative cherry-on-top when the two of them get a few hours to share each other’s company.

Turning to look at his colleague, Tomas asks the tattooed and pierced woman, “Is it alright with you if I ended my shift a bit early?” She shakes her head and waves goodbye briefly before returning her attention to her customers, and Kuai Liang takes a short moment to admire the artistry of the snake curling around her forearm, warm oranges and sharp yellows blending carefully on each scale. The vibrancy of the colors indicate that it’s quite new, which would explain why he does not remember such an elegant piece despite his frequency here.

Perhaps he should find the artist for the piece so that he may finally update the sign for his parlor for the first time in many, many years.

As Tomas goes around to the the back for his belongings, Kuai Liang ruminates the image of a dragon painted like that of the ocean's vivid waters, composed of magnificent ceruleans and electric blues, shaped with curving lines and wavy forms. It would be stylized much like the depictions he grew up seeing in his birthplace, long and lean-bodied, square-faced but lacking wings. A panlong would be most fitting, he thinks, due to its association with water. The meaning of it may be lost on many of his customers, but would it be so useless if it at least represented something to him?

A hand clasping his shoulder reminds him of where he is and he sheepishly apologizes to Tomas before they begin walking toward the doorway, handing him the lunchbox as they step out onto the sidewalk. They stroll further west and find an unoccupied bench in front of a street vendor serving gyros and gemista, the flavors of the air shifting from loose tobacco to grilling meat. As soon as they sit down on the metal seat, Tomas unclasps the lunch cooler and pulls out the carton inside.

“A clean fork should be in the front pocket,” Kuai Liang points out to him, folding the cardigan onto his lap. It isn’t quite cold enough out for him to require it; Tomas and the kids at the orphanage always told him that he must be cold-blooded because he could play or practice kung fu in the snow with little difficulty. Despite getting older, not much has changed regarding his unusual blood circulation, and he always finds himself the most at peace when there's fresh snow on the ground.

He watches Tomas as the man pulls off the lid of the container, setting it aside and promptly piercing the topmost breaded scoop with the fork. The green-colored cream gushes out from the top in a rush, then spilling out the side as the entire ball is split in half. When he takes his first bite, Tomas hums in satisfaction as the matcha taste washes over his tongue.

“You are,” he pauses to swallow before finishing his praise, “my favorite person, Liang. Thank you.” Tomas’ dyed silver hair — of which is partially reminiscent of Frost’s — flips almost magnificently over his shoulder as he turns to Kuai Liang at his left. His hair has been treated into pale colors since they were teenagers when they could afford to be adventurous and the only difference now being it’s ever-increasing length.

A chuckle bubbles in his chest as he replies, “And you mine.” He crosses a leg over the other, then continues with a proper look at the person sitting beside him, “I always enjoy an opportunity to make confections.”

They trade the typical pleasantries while they people watch, discussing the quality of their jobs — Dragon’s Ice is steadily getting busier as the heat rolls in, the smoke shop is skyrocketing in popularity due to a sudden fascination with vaping — and how their free time has been spent, of which they both share the sentiment of it being “uninteresting.”

By the time Tomas is digging into the last scoop of specially-made-for-him ice cream, their conversation falls into a lull, the sounds of others chatting and the echoing noises from traffic down the street encompassing them as much as their exchanges. To the back of the bench sits a convenience store, an occasional jingle followed by footsteps pattering behind them.

The number of pedestrians is starting to thin out with fewer pairs or groups of people passing by by the minute. He follows their departing figures with his eyes and catches small details about them as they pass the bench, and Kuai Liang is drawn to a set of high, shapely cheekbones on a young man walking in a group of friends. Internally groaning at his mind’s narrow priorities, he decides that now is as good a time as any and opens his mouth to say, “I think I may have met someone.”

Tomas perks up at the words in spite of their vagueness, and he turns with arched brows, wide eyes, and a hand over his lips as he speaks with a mouth full of food, “Someone?” He gulps down his dessert right after, then leaning his torso forward and imploring, “Please, tell me.”

Kuai Liang closes his eyes and the grin splitting his face only reminds him of the one he held as he watched Hanzo leave the parlor. He rubs his forehead with a few fingertips and massages the skin in embarrassment as he explains, “A man arrived at my shoppe Tuesday afternoon and it was...” 

Words are escaping him. He scrambles for a way to articulate himself in his head for a few seconds that feel as if they’re stretching on for minutes before the comparison he needs returns to him. He laughs at himself before opening his eyes again and he twists his body in his seat to look directly at Tomas, who is staring back at him with entertained anticipation.

“The films I watch with you, the trite romantic comedies we have watched late into the night?” Tomas snorts at the sudden mention, but Kuai Liang continues, “Those moments where the destined couple meet eyes for the first time?”

Tomas nods, likely reliving in his mind the dozens upon dozens of clichéd movies that he has seen countless times, looking like a laugh is ready to burst from him in expectation of his friends next words.

“That is what happened to me when I saw him.”

That snicker erupts from Tomas as he ducks his head, dropping the fork into the pint and settling the container onto his thigh. Taking a deep breath, he inquires further, “What is he like?”

Kuai Liang stays silent for a few moments as he mulls over how to begin describing someone who has been absorbing his thoughts at any chance he allows his focus to wander. Parting his lips once more, he leans his elbow against the back of the bench and settles his temple onto his palm as he describes the man in question.

He rebuilds the stranger’s face from his memory, retracing the shape of his lips and cheekbones, the angles of his eyes, the flowing cascade of his dark hair, the toned sinew of his arms. It is easy for him to paint the man's image, but illustrating the tone and timbre of his voice, the essence of his expressions when speaking with Takeda, the quality of his character when he hardly knows him at all are much more difficult. Kuai Liang details as much as his memory will permit him, talking until he has truly nothing new left to describe.

Glancing down at the smooth teal paint on the bench, he confides, “I have only met him once, but it seems that was enough for him to render me completely smitten.”

The smile on Tomas’ face is warm as he asks, “Do you know his name?”

“Hanzo Hasashi.” He thinks that he may never tire of saying those two words.

“Do you think you will meet him again?” his friend asks, leaning back into his seat with the fork in hand again.

With a sigh that is both sanguine and saddened, Kuai Liang answers, “I can only hope.”

* * *

"I still cannot believe that you had Johnny Cage walk into your shoppe," Tomas exclaims as he shuts the driver's side door, pressing the lock button on the key fob. On the other side, Kuai Liang steps out of the car, cradling boxes of takeout meals neatly stacked and wrapped together in a plastic bag. He pushes the door closed with his hip and follows Tomas into the house.

“I would never lie to you,” Kuai Liang says while Tomas opens the front door, “so I assure you that it is true.”

Almost immediately after stepping inside, the dog — a four year-old Beagle adopted by one of the house’s residents — darts for Tomas and clamors against his shins, dragging her paws down black denim jeans as she bounces in excitement, jingling tags on her green collar highlighting each hop. “Oh, no, I believe you!” he says, stopping to calm the dog, getting her four feet back onto the floor, and then continuing, “To think that it actually happened is what’s astonishing.”

“I feel foolish for not recognizing him sooner,” Kuai Liang mutters, squatting to give the dog a few pats on the head with a spare arm before trailing Tomas’ path up the stairs. He adds, “Never had I realized how small of a town it is we live in, especially if it was due to Hanzo’s chain of connections that lead a Hollywood actor to buy my ice cream.”

His friend chuckles, “Small town indeed.” They walk into the narrow hallway that connects directly to the staircase, the small space illuminated with by gentle, yellow ceiling lamp. Tomas’ room is the last one on the right, situated next to the full bathroom and across from the bedroom of another housemate. Kuai Liang bets that mornings are both a little hectic and crowded here.

There are three other people who rent a room in this two-story house and Kuai Liang has met all or at least most of them several times. Tomas doesn’t talk about them much, not because he dislikes them — far from it, as they were his first friends after moving to the US — but rather that he is so often away from home to bring them up, either putting in hours at the smoke shop or volunteering at the animal shelter just outside the center of town.

Kuai Liang cannot tell if no one else is home or if they have all hidden themselves in their own rooms as the humble house is resting in a quaint silence, save for the echoed barking of the dog downstairs, the creeks of the hardwood flooring under their weight, the fridge groaning as the ice machine drops more cubes in the tray.

With food in hand, Kuai Liang settles onto the familiar futon and unties the plastic bag while Tomas searches his bookcase, thumbing through his collection of films ranging from low budget independents to Hollywood blockbusters. This is usually how their time together ends: restaurant meals on an old futon in front of a television, watching a cheesy movie full of B-list actors. Ten years later and little has changed.

He just shakes his head with a laugh when Tomas pulls out a copy of “Citizen Cage.” Of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE and accidentally deleted this chapter. It's restored and back to normal now!


	5. RAIDEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Friday. Amidst crowds of customers, three familiar faces make a return and Kuai Liang feels like he's going to drown.

To say that he dreads the imminent influx of customers would be inaccurate in the same way he is not necessarily excited or looking forward to the promise of the Friday night rush. Granted, it is not as overwhelming as Saturday — by far the busiest of all business days — but for a straight hour or so, both Frost and himself must tend to a constantly growing line of people awaiting their orders. The rest of the evening is still quite active, with customers coming in and out at a less dense yet still incessant pace.

He doesn’t experience much stress at his job — a blessing, others may think — and Kuai Liang is thankful that he only deals with such strain for what is merely an unremarkable fraction of the hours he puts into work. What he is simultaneously thankful and regretful for is having his single employee becoming trapped in the workload with him. She never complains when she’s serving someone, but when it is just the two of them behind the counter or in the kitchen, she holds little back.

Tomas once told him that his tolerance for her attitude is unprecedented. He simply appreciates honesty, and as far as he knows, she still enjoys her position in spite of her criticisms.

Frost stands at her designated spot at the register and in the corner of his eye Kuai Liang sees her peer around the corner before she inexplicably groans in disgust. He beams in response to her sneer, not having to even look at the clock himself to know where its hands lie. Thermometer in hand, he tests the temperature of each tub in the display freezer to ensure the appliance is running as it should.

“Have we not survived every Friday and Saturday given to us in the past?” He asks, switching the thermometer from the chocolate ice cream to his personal chocolate and white chocolate fudge recipe.

“It isn’t a test of character, boss,” she says, rolling her eyes at what he assumes to be his manner of speech. A few years away from his forties and he still can’t shake off the formal English he learned in school when he was still living in the outskirts of Beijing. It probably doesn’t do him much help that he prefers to be as polite as possible.

“Your tone suggests it is,” he responds, wiping off the tool and leaning forward to test the row of sorbets. She doesn’t dignify him with a rebuttal and instead chooses to ignore him entirely.

For a few moments, that is seemingly what everyone present in the parlor is doing, patrons keeping to themselves as they spoon shaved ice into their mouths, Frost opening the register to count the quantity of each type of note inside, Kuai Liang finishing his measurements with the coconut-based desserts. Through the windows it is easy to see the that rush hour is approaching, if the increased numbers of cars on the street are anything to go by.

He looks up at the door when he hears a dainty chime out of habit, and the tall individual approaching the front is one he recognizes with little effort. 

“It is a pleasure to see you, Raiden,” he welcomes with a slight bow, not wanting to offer a sticky, sugar-covered hand to one of his favorite regulars. If his memory is serving him right, Kuai Liang hasn’t seen this particular face outside of a television screen for nearly a month, longer than the last time he had previously saw Tomas until last evening.

Time loves to escape him lately, it seems.

Raiden reciprocates the gesture, his lengthy, strikingly white hair falling forward from the motion. He opens his mouth once his posture is righted and states, “I have missed you and your shoppe. Forgive my absence.”

“Nonsense,” Kuai Liang insists, reaching for a paper bowl and digging into a frozen vat with a freshly washed scoop without needing to wait for his order. Out of all of his returning customers, Raiden is the most consistent, not once requesting anything other than a medium-sized bowl of lemon sorbet.

While Kuai Liang fills the bowl, Raiden turns to face the one standing behind the cash register. He greets her kindly, but — unsurprisingly and being largely expected — he is only met with an uninterested grunt, Frost not even bothering to share his gaze. She chooses to focus her attention on counting money. Kuai Liang knows that Raiden has learned to not take it personally, as they both have learned that she only carries conversation with her employer — barely so for that matter.

Raiden brushes it off and looks to Kuai Liang once more, beginning the same smalltalk they partake in each time they meet with the statement, “Business is doing well, I hope.” He lifts the fabric of his suit jacket covering his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, opening the two-fold to sift through the notes inside.

“Well,” Kuai Liang starts, stacking the last scoop of sorbet into the bowl, “you are to witness it at its most hectic in just a matter of minutes.” He waits to hand the purchase over to Raiden until the man has given Frost the amount of cash required, the cold seeping through the thin paper and chilling his fingers further.

Raiden grins at Kuai Liang’s response as he gives Frost the payment. It is exact as always — down to the thirty-five cents composed of a quarter, a dime, and a nickel — and displays the same precision that Raiden uses at work, a fact that can be seen by anyone who watches the morning forecast regularly. He carries an air of elegance that is different than the woman clad in white-and-gold who frequents the parlor, movements and language and voice being rare to falter. 

A few creased bills join the growing pile forming in the tip jar. As he takes his sorbet, Raiden says, “To be busy is to be successful. You must be doing well.” 

“I suppose we are,” Kuai Liang agrees, gazing over at Frost and leaning onto the top of the display case with his arms folded across the brushed metal. She ignores the two of them again and walks through the kitchen doorway; he assumes that she is leaving to restock supplies prior to the rush. 

Kuai Liang points to the silvery tresses of the person before him and says, “Seldom do I see your hair down. It is much longer than I thought.”

“Oh, yes,” he responds as if caught off-guard, pausing in his eating. “I have neglected to get it cut and keeping it tied up has been giving me headaches lately,” he finishes as he drops the spoon in the bowl. He rolls a thin lock of hair between his thumb and forefinger as he speaks, examining it briefly before opening his mouth again and effectively changing the subject with, “That beard is very becoming of you.”

Kuai Liang chuckles at the compliment while absent-mindedly scratching at the dark hairs lining his jaw, thanking him and then noting, “It makes me look my age, that is for certain.” Raiden shakes his head at that, taking another bite from his off-white dessert, assuring his friend that he still has the face of a twenty year-old youth.

Minutes speed by while Raiden and Kuai Liang catch-up with one another, the clatters of wooden spoons against plastic containers, the shivering of waxy paper scraping against each other, the hollow thud of thick straws striking the dispenser floating through the air as they both discuss the several weeks since their last conversation.

They talk about the weather — specifically the arrival of the spring monsoon prior to the summer heat — and unfamiliar faces walking into the shoppe for the first time in months, though the details of whom are cut short as another patron walks in. Soon more new customers begin to filter through the doors, and Kuai Liang bids Raiden an abrupt farewell so that he and Frost may attend each customer properly.

It is when he says hello to the red-haired woman — eyes shaped with dark, heavy makeup and clothed in scarlets brighter than her hair — that he remembers just how tall Raiden is, especially so in comparison to shorter individuals like Frost. He himself is of a large build, but Raiden manages to tower above him enough that Kuai Liang actually has to tilt his head up to meet eyes with the esteemed weatherman.

As he prepares her order — small raspberry sorbet — he notes which table Raiden is seated at and while he understands the decision to sit with his back facing the door, Kuai Liang isn’t sure why he chose the largest table available if he is going to be eating alone. He pushes the thought aside, choosing not to overexamine it in favor of giving his customers his full attention.

By the time he is handing her the vibrantly red treat and she is side-stepping over to Frost, a line is slowly manifesting behind her, people unevenly stretching from the display case to the midway point of the dining area.

One after the other, he takes and prepares their orders until the end of the queue is nearly touching the entryway. Amidst the bustling activity at the front counter, Kuai Liang briskly explains who takes priority of what in order to hasten the process; he will take care of anything that comes from the display freezer, as well as shaved ice while she will operate the register, garnish orders with toppings, and prepare milkshakes.

Their system works well, but the atmosphere is wearing down on the two of them faster than they’d like. While they are steadily getting through a large number of orders, the volume inside the modest space is becoming louder — due largely in part to many adult patrons bringing their children with them — and whatever songs playing over the speakers are practically inaudible among the chattering. Customers can be heard without trouble and they are all being quite patient and cordial, but he feels like everything is much more hectic than it truly is.

"Hey! Raidude!"

The shout for attention is so resounding that the volume intensity of everyone's conversations drop down to zero for a few very confused seconds. Kuai Liang's brows furrow tightly as he looks up and around in the midst of coating an ice cream cone with caramel syrup, scanning the shoppe for the source of the voice. At the far side of the room, a man holds up one hand while cupping the side of his mouth with the other, brown hair pushed back by a pair of sleek sunglasses.

Johnny.

He appears to be completely unfazed by the surprised stares of the people around him, peering over to where Raiden is seated, fervently waving his hand as if to ensure that if he wasn’t heard then he must be seen instead.

Distractedly Kuai Liang gives the cone to the awaiting customer, nodding and smiling at them briefly before quickly switching over to gaze at the second most famous person in this shoppe as he stands from his seat. He stares at Raiden’s back as he approaches Johnny, the two of them sharing the same happy gleam of teeth as they greet one another. Suddenly the town feels even smaller, and Kuai Liang doesn’t know what to make of it.

Frost twists her head in silent questioning, looking at him with wide eyes darkened by knotted brows, and without her having to voice it he is certain that they are wondering the exact same thing. If anything, seeing Johnny Cage in person for the first time is likely leaving her dumbstruck. She at least recognizes him better than Kuai Liang had a few days ago.

Everyone else in the parlor ruminates over the convergence of widely recognizable faces, hushed exclamations of awe and rough whispers of bewilderment among the guests returning the noise to their earlier levels.

He attempts to recenter his focus onto those waiting right in front of them — taking orders and preparing them with the kind of speed that is only granted by years upon years of practice — but his eyes continue to drift to the far back, catching glimpses of the weatherperson and the actor while trying to discern how they know each other at all.

Raiden bends down for a short second before rising back up again, holding an ever-gleeful Cassie in his arms and placing a kiss on her forehead. The group of three mingle together while the line becomes longer behind them, yet as the line moves forward and others step up to the counters, Kuai Liang has a more difficult time observing them clearly. Feeling only momentarily defeated, he tears his gaze away to tend to the family of five awaiting assistance.

One individual wants a milkshake, but the remaining four all request different ice cream flavors, causing him to ask his employee to take care of toppings for their orders to make everything go faster. It is when he moves over to stand directly beside Frost and then to carefully hand the youngest child of the family her ice cream bowl that he gets a better view of the end of the line, of Raiden and Johnny and Cassie, of a familiar black ponytail just behind them.

A person blocking his line of sight shifts over as they switch their weight from one leg to the other, and there is that face again — soft nose, high and shapely cheekbones, narrow eyes with irises like that of russet cloth, dense facial hair that serves to soften the jaw rather than define it — that hits Kuai Liang like a punch landing on his diaphragm.

Breath catches in his throat and for a moment his body locks in place, a second wave rushing over him, drowning out his lungs and halting the air from flooding out of his body. What was once captivation held by an unfamiliar but gorgeous person has now been replaced by a combination of relief and joy, unsuspecting of seeing the stranger again among so many other faces.

His reverie hardly lasts long enough for the people around him to take notice before he’s turning back toward the display case, wiping his hands onto his white-on-black, pinstriped apron in an effort to regain his composure. He can’t allow himself to act like an idiot and become pushy again, if only to not endure the irritated glares of his subordinate and embarrassing himself in front of his customers, much less also scaring Hanzo off for good and losing his chance to get to know the man.

He returns to the repetitive process of asking the same standard question — “What would you like?” — and then either taking it upon himself or having Frost prepare it instead with every individual who steps up to him, a routine that has become so second-nature that it is no surprise that it sometimes appears in his dreams.

Both him and Frost fall into a steady tempo of moving around each other in the same small space behind the counters, her shoulders brushing along his back as she slinks past to the blender with a freshly-rinsed malt cup in hand, or him reaching past behind her head to grab a bowl for an order of shaved ice. They both become so engrossed in the rhythm that Kuai Liang almost doesn’t notice it is finally Johnny patiently waiting at the head of the line, Raiden standing beside him with Cassie still in his arms.

He does his best to not allow his gaze wander over Johnny’s shoulder to look at Hanzo behind him, the man’s shoulders hunched over to talk to little Takeda currently clutching onto his hand.

“Yo, Kuai Liang,” Johnny greets with a wink, holding a bowl of melting lemon sorbet.

“I am glad to see you again so soon, Johnny,” he replies, truly meaning his words. When Johnny said he and his daughter would be revisiting in the near future, he hadn’t realized he meant in little over a day. “What may we get you today?”

To his right Cassie lightly taps her little hand on the glass, drawing Kuai Liang’s attention over to her. She looks even tinier wrapped in Raiden’s embrace, practically disappearing behind the slate grey sleeves of his jacket as she clings onto him as best she can with her legs. Judging by her hooded eyes, it’s due time that she’s tucked into bed.

“Strawberry again, Mr. Kuai Liang,” she requests with her chin partially buried in her shoulder. “But can I get a bowl this time?” Her voice sounds more like mumbling than the bubbly and clear speech from a couple days ago, but he understands her easily in spite of her sleepiness. 

He hums with amusement and assures her with, “Of course you may,” as he grabs for a bowl and then a clean scoop. He looks back up to Johnny as he gathers together the single scoop of pink, speckled ice cream to ask, “Would you like your previous order, as well?”

“Nah,” Johnny raises a hand and waves it around as if brushing off an offer, “I only eat ice cream once a week. I’ll just get water.”

Kuai Liang is silently thankful.

He’d make more smalltalk if only he had the time for it, so he decides that he will have to chat with them another time and focuses on getting the line moving faster. When he asks Cassie if she wants sprinkles as before, she shakes her head “no” and quietly gives him her gratitude. Raiden reaches out to take the bowl for her and then grabs a spoon once she is holding the dessert herself, softly talking to her in an effort to keep her eyelids open most likely.

Kuai Liang watches him carry her to the table he was seated at prior to their arrival, but another tap on the glass drags his gaze over again. Johnny leans forward a bit, lowering his voice as he mentions, “Hey, I’ve got something to talk to you about later. I, uh, can see you’re really busy right now.”

He leaves it at that, paying Frost and dropping a few bills in the tip jar before heading to the far corner of the parlor where the water cooler sits. Kuai Liang stares after his retreating back — not being the only one to do so, undeniably — and having no idea what his newest customer could have in mind.

There’s a sound of someone softly clearing their throat to his side and like an unexpected pinch in the arm he abruptly remembers just who was next after the famous actor.

He turns his head to face the stranger who has managed to invade his thoughts time and time again since Tuesday, unconsciously taking in a sharp breath through his nose as he looks at him head on. Hanzo blinks at him repeatedly when their eyes meet, his expression strangely blank, yet the friendly air not gone from him at all. Takeda stands on his toes beside him as he scans his eyes along the frozen tubs, paying no mind to the adults surrounding him and alternatively pondering on what ice cream to get.

“Hello,” Hanzo says finally, breaking the tenseness that he must have also felt falling over the two of them. His eyebrows raise only slightly as he speaks and, when the last syllable goes faint, his lips pull into an awkward smile, crooked and just barely showing teeth.

Kuai Liang mirrors his grin and bows his head as he had with Raiden before he says, "I am grateful that my foolishness didn’t hinder your return."

Hanzo laughs at that and his features relax, the discomfort vanishing, ease appearing on his face as he ducks his head timidly. "You were not foolish, I assure you," he responds, talking more toward the floor than to the person speaking with him. He brings his head back up and looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek for a reason that Kuai Liang cannot exactly discern.

He decides to let it aside and asks, "What would you like this evening?” The question flows as easily as it had with the dozens of customers before. He feels more composed standing face-to-face with Hanzo this time, though the ceaseless fluttering behind his sternum is still there, reminding him and pushing him outside the boundaries of professionalism.

This newfound composure being the result of not being completely off-guard or in the middle of an incredibly busy work shift he doesn’t know, but he’s contented with it either way.

Hanzo and Takeda once again order plum shaved ice and a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone, respectively, and are both surprised that Kuai Liang still had them in his working memory when he says, “Oh, the same items as on Tuesday?” He’s always had impressive recall — perhaps that’s why learning a second language came so easily for him.

For the sake of the eager clusters of people behind Hanzo, Kuai Liang avoids making conversation in favor of getting the ice cream prepared as swiftly as possible. He turns to Frost as he digs into the green and chocolate-speckled tub and asks her to make Hanzo’s request, pretending he didn’t see the callous look on her face as she walks toward the ice crank.

Handing them their desserts is hardly different from anyone else from the past hour. There is no pressure to buy something, no small talk done in an effort to simply hear the other man’s voice, no grand feeling of accomplishment from finally getting him to ask for a uncommon order. He still feels a sense of satisfaction, though, from seeing the nostalgic smile on Hanzo’s face when he takes the first taste of sweet plum.

Hanzo gives Frost a ten dollar bill, placing the four notes she gives back to him into the tip jar. As he is urged to Raiden’s table by Takeda’s hand tugging on his own, Hanzo cranes his neck over his shoulder and glances at Kuai Liang in very much the same way as when he was on the sidewalk, soft eyes and gentle grin.

Kuai Liang lets out a sigh that most would describe as lovestruck.

The rest of the evening is a blur while he and Frost take care of the final advent of customers, working off of one another almost effortlessly to pass time until the line has dispersed. Every once in a while, typically between serving and taking a new order, he will peek at Raiden’s table near the right side of the building out of curiosity.

Johnny and Cassie — the latter of whom seems about ready to fall asleep into her bowl of ice cream — sit with their backs to the wall, while Hanzo and Takeda sit across from them. Raiden is seated at one of the heads of the table, facing away from the front windows of the parlor. Their conversations appear largely easy-going, though inaudible to Kuai Liang as he operates behind the counters, and occasionally he hears someone laugh amongst the group.

They all speak with one another amicably — at least the adults of the group — as if they’ve known each other for years. It is possible and perhaps likely that they have, yet he has no idea of how his two newest returning patrons knows one of his oldest regulars so closely. Maybe Tomas’ remark on their “small town” is simply that: individuals who know a friend of a friend all eventually becoming a collective of companions due to how diminutive this city is.

It is when the crowd inside the shoppe has begun to dwindle and the skies outside have turned indigo where their discussion becomes a bit frenzied. He misses much of it — busy with attending to those who are waiting on his and his employee’s services — but the pieces he gets to observe are... fascinating.

Johnny is leaning forward in his seat, drumming his hands on the tabletop as he lets out a waterfall of words at Hanzo sitting directly across from him. Despite how loudly the actor is speaking, Kuai Liang still cannot understand what he is saying from where he stands, but from the way Hanzo is burying his face in one of his hands it must be embarrassing, annoying, or both.

Hanzo shakes his head eventually, putting up his hands in surrender and hunching his shoulders, body language mixed between wanting to melt into the chair he is sitting in in exasperation and wanting to wring Johnny’s neck if only to get him to stop talking. What Johnny is trying to convince him, Kuai Liang does not know, but the amused Raiden apparently agreeing with Johnny is palpable, entertaining, and strange all at once.

When Johnny — and by extension Raiden — has appeared to give up, Kuai Liang turns around to clean out the blender now that there is no longer a queue formed at the counters. He goes into the kitchen to grab a spare washcloth, douse it in cool water, and lightly lather it with dish soap for us as a quick wipe down, but when he strolls back to the main dining room, who else but Johnny is lingering in front of the register. Past his casual leaning against the counter, the dining hall is mostly empty with only two or three tables occupied.

Lowly he asks Frost if she will take care of it for him and she nods, grabbing the cloth with what is likely the last bit of energy she has left until she goes home — or whatever she does on Friday nights that she doesn’t want to tell her boss about. Letting the thought pass through his mind briefly, he actually doesn’t know her all that well.

Patting his palms on his apron to remove the excess water, he looks to Johnny and says, “Hello again. What may I do for you?” 

“I’m going to make you an offer,” he replies, uncrossing his arms and digging out his wallet, “that you can’t refuse.”

An offer? Kuai Liang isn’t sure how to respond, raising his eyebrows in silence as he waits for Johnny to continue. He is intrigued, though, as he has never had someone open a conversation in such a way. Granted, customers will request him to create a one-time only flavor for them to pickup later — or if several people request the same thing, provide it as a flavor of the week — but he doesn’t know what to expect.

“Cass’ birthday is in a couple months and I want you to make ice cream for the party,” Johnny states, unfolding and fingering through the contents of his wallet.

Reluctantly, Kuai Liang asks, “How much?”

“About five gallons? Sonya helped me out with how much I should pay you and she said it should be between nine hundred and thousand dollars,” Johnny explains without pause. Kuai Liang stops listening after the amount and his mind fills with the multitude of reasons why that much product will be extremely difficult to create.

His work schedule is already pushing over sixty hours a week because the only individual running this meager parlor — help from Frost aside — is himself. Operating the shoppe takes much of his time and preparing the ice cream he needs to just get by week to week is something he does entirely on his own when he isn’t open for business, as well. These aren’t complaints, far from it. He loves this job and he simply doesn’t have the time...

One thousand dollars.

The number runs on an endless loop in his eardrums and Johnny keeps talking but Kuai Liang hasn’t been listening. “I... I am sorry, Johnny, could you repeat that?”

Vague confusion twists his features for a split second before he opens his mouth again, saying, “I need five gallons for Cassie’s party on the Fourth of July and I’ll pay for everything you need?” In one of his hands is a stack of bank notes, folded in half and held together with a paperclip. The topmost bill reads with a solid 100 on the side.

“That is much more compensation than necessary...” Kuai Liang trails off, feeling lost. 

Johnny holds up a hand, sticking his emptied wallet into his back pocket with the other. “No way, Sonya and I sat together figuring this out and the money should totally cover supplies and your time,” he holds out the wad of cash over the top of the register, “and if you need more for ingredients or something I can cover that, too.”

Kuai Liang dumbly takes the bills, probably looking ridiculous with his jaw dropped as he stares at the man commissioning him out of nowhere. Johnny lets go of the money while Kuai Liang’s arm hardly moves, having received the payment for work he hasn’t officially agreed to. Mumbling he tells him, “I don’t believe I have the space for this.”

“I can rent a spare freezer if ya need it,” Johnny counters. “Listen, I’ll have to get back to you on what flavors we need cause I’ve got to text everyone what they want,” he explains and then pauses, twisting his head over his shoulder to peer at his table. “Speaking of...”

Johnny leans forward, setting one of his arms onto the countertop for leverage. The pause is palpable as Kuai Liang watches the friendly grin on his face become more mischievous, the corner pulling up into a toothy smirk and a single eyebrow quirking up as if he was about to attempt a terrible pick-up line. Lowly he says, “Hanzo will be there.”

It isn’t the words themselves so much as the intent behind them that leads Kuai Liang’s eyes to widen, his lungs to take a sharp inhale through his nose, his muscles in his arms and legs to become tense. A plethora of emotions are running through his head — chagrin, confusion, shock, excitement — but above all he feels horribly, transparently gay.

Johnny pushes himself off the counter with that same smirk splitting his face and waves goodbye before he returns to the table, striding proudly and victoriously. Kuai Liang stares after his retreating form, clenching the thin stack of hundreds between his thumb and index finger.

Frost approaches from behind him and stops at his side, peering at Johnny’s payment with unexpected interest. He looks at her, finally clenching his jaw closed, and tries to find something to say, yet he is too much at a loss after the rollercoaster the actor forced him onto. She shrugs and purses her lips, however, traces of emotion in her eyes indicate that she is also quite surprised.

Kuai Liang doesn’t know how much time has passed — seconds, minutes, what seems like hours — until he blinks and suddenly Hanzo is standing across from him at the counter, wringing his hands together nervously. He hadn’t even noticed the man get up and walk toward the back of the shoppe and yet here he is.

He blinks a few times and shakes his head as he composes himself, clearing his throat, tucking the cash into his back pocket, and then inquiring, “What can I help you with?” He sounds like a broken record today. How many times has he said a similar phrase in just the past hour?

“Uh...” Hanzo starts, digging a thumb into one of his palms and gazing up at the ceiling. Sighing he meets Kuai Liang’s eyes, untangles his hands, and swallows. He opens his mouth and admits, “This is embarrassing, forgive me, but may I have your phone number?”

There’s that wave rushing over his body again, drowning out his lungs. He can’t breathe.

He stumbles, sensing the gaze of Frost against the back of his neck, feeling it itch and wanting to scratch at it. Nerves try to get the best of him, but he does his best to compose himself and smile politely. He nods, trying to find paper and pen near the register that he knows he doesn’t have, but Hanzo tells him that he can put the string into his phone and send him a message.

Enduring the same foolishness he made of himself on Tuesday, he lists the numbers of his cell phone out loud to Hanzo, having him repeat the numbers back to him to ensure it’s correct. After hitting send on a text to Kuai Liang’s phone, Hanzo laughs in what sounds like sheepishness as he asks Kuai Liang to give him a call sometime.

They bid each other farewell, waving clumsily at one another as Hanzo walks away to rejoin Takeda and the rest. He watches the group of five leave — Johnny carrying a sleeping Cassie, Hanzo holding Takeda’s hand — but notices Raiden looking back at him, smiling all-knowingly when he walks through the door last.

Kuai Liang stands there with a thousand dollars tucked in his back pocket, an unread text message from the man who has left him enamored for over three days, the smirk of his only employee boring at him from the corner of his eye, and it is all just too surreal.


	6. FROST

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Saturday. Kuai Liang attempts to connect with his only employee and succeeds — mostly.

June 12 is the date logged onto Frost’s application, scribbled in small, sharp letters in a dark blue ink over pure white printer paper. He hadn’t put the job opening online and it was up to anyone walking past the shoppe or actively exploring this side of town to see the handwritten sign reading “now hiring” against the window.

That was 345 days ago from today, and Kuai Liang is trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he has known her for almost a solid year now. Time goes by so quickly.

Frost was one of the first to step through the door with the intention of filling out an application, not purchasing an ice cream cone or a sixteen ounce milkshake. She wasn’t particularly amicable then either, fixing him with a bored stare as she asked about the sign and pulling a pen out of her modest satchel at the same time. Her lack of enthusiasm should have put him off, but he found himself unperturbed by it.

Perhaps her attitude was given the same ridiculous patience that Tomas has been poking at him about since their childhoods. He just likes giving people the benefit of the doubt.

The penmanship was miniscule enough that he had to squint to read it and eventually made an appointment with a local optician to ensure his vision wasn’t finally going bad; his eyes were fine and he blames it on being the Latin alphabet rather than the hanzi text he grew up reading. A few glances at her class notes when she’s studying during lulled hours at the shoppe show that her writing is still just as tiny.

Under the heading for previous work experience sits a position at another ice cream parlor — the only applicant to have such — but at a location in a city hundreds of miles away. Aside from her demeanor, she had the most qualifications for the position the four others who applied the same week.

He still can’t remember the birth name written at the top, just “Frost” written on the line for an optional preferred name. Maybe the coincidental nickname gave him a chuckle — he doesn’t quite remember — but never has he called her by that legal name.

She’s always referred to him as “Boss” and never by name, though he has yet to decide if it bothers him or not — or if he should even criticize her for it.

Does she refuse to call him by his actual name so as to maintain a lack of familiarity with him? He wonders this only because he realizes he knows next to nothing about her, despite being coworkers for almost a solid year now. And in truth, this is something he would like to change.

While they are closing up — the sun having long set, customers lingering in the shoppe no longer, outside building lights shut off — Kuai Liang catches Frost while she is in the midst of taking inventory in the kitchen, counting the quantity of waffle mix bags inside a counter cabinet. The sheet pinned onto the clipboard is filled with numbers in her handwriting; strangely, the digits are written larger than the letters.

He stands at her side, positioning at the right angle so that she sees his feet before hearing his voice, primarily so he doesn’t surprise her on accident. Without waiting too long, she quietly inquires if he needs her for something, busily scribbling with the gel pen in her right hand.

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he responds, “Not for a task. Would you sit down with me for a few moments?”

She gazes up at him from her place on the ground, blank and unreadable. Setting the clipboard atop the counter, she gets up and looks to him as if he gave her an order rather than a choice. Making her feel obligated was not his intention, but he sees little point in clarifying or saying she should not have to agree to a non-work related request. He notes to himself to work on his syntax as he turns around, beckoning for her to follow.

She trails after him as he walks into the dining area, the wide room illuminated at half their usual intensity with the array of ceiling lamps turned on in staggered patterns. He chooses one of the small circular tables, sitting down on the furthermost chair while Frost seats herself in the one across from it.

Now that he finally has a moment to speak with her, he isn’t sure how he should even start. Directly in front of him she stares with little emotion to be found in her features, shoulders barely hunched as her arms hang plainly at her sides. He may be a big person physically, but Frost does not need to do much to intimidate him through sheer body language.

“I understand that you’re likely just as exhausted as I am after today,” he starts, shifting his weight atop the leather cushion, “but...”

With a sigh Kuai Liang brings a hand to his back, pulling one of the bow’s tails to unravel the knot of the apron. It falls loose at his waist. He then grabs the neck strap, lifting it over his head and pressing the fabric in his lap. When he returns his gaze back to hers, however, Frost speaks up before he has the chance to continue.

“Are you going to lecture me?” She sounds largely uninterested.

Quickly he counters, “No, I wish to speak to you not as your boss but as a fellow employee.” He is met by silence after stating as such and he elaborates, “So that we can learn more about one another.”

Despite his genuineness, the expression on her face fails to change at all. Instead she leans back into the chair, folding her hands over her thighs and flatly asking, “Why?”

“Do you find it strange that we have been working together for nearly an entire year, yet know next to nothing about each other?” he inquires, leaning forward with his forearms bracing onto the tabletop as if trying to close the gap she created.

“No.”

He should have expected as much. Always so short with words and straight to the point, Frost would not be bothered by the absent friendship they have as mere coworkers. She would have said so otherwise.

“Will you amuse me then?” he responds, lacing his fingers together and probably appearing less friendly and more business in the process.

With a groan of disgust, Frost crosses her arms and resigns, turning her head away to point an annoyed stare into an invisible spot on the floor. After a beat she begrudgingly says, "Fine."

He supposes that he should start with the basic and obvious. "Do you enjoy working here?"

A shrug. "I guess."

"Do you like having me as your boss?"

Her glare quickly shifts from the tiled ground to bore directly into his eyes, quirking an eyebrow as she says, "I thought this was a friendly chat, not a job evaluation."

"Right, okay, no work discussion," he replies, parting his hands and holding them up in defense. She's correct — he doesn't intend to interrogate her on her proficiency as a parlor clerk. He opens his mouth again to continue the conversation, but with each question he asks the more he sees how painfully one-sided it is.

Whenever he throws her a general inquiry, her response is as limited as possible, composed solely of single-word answers or the occasional phrase that is often ambiguous at best. When he asks her about school, she just shrugs once more, saying “It’s school.” His attempts to dig deeper — what classes is she taking, who does she sit with for lunch, how are her grades, what her favorite subject is — are met with similar, barely comprehensive replies.

He does learn a few things, though, in spite of her bluntness. She sits with a group of kids who also dye and cut their hair in unconventional ways. Just like her performance at work, she is diligent with her studies and is unsurprisingly a successful student, coming home with report cards listing few letters other than the letter “A.” Her schedule entails the standard core subjects — language, history, science, mathematics — amongst an art class or two and, if her use of the phrase “kind of like” is anything to go by, she has a particular interest in calculus.

She mentions physical education as a class she doesn’t really mind, as well. He finds the possibility of a shared interest in exercise as a launching pad for balancing out their stunted discussion, but her dislike of weight-lifting and her preference in cardio causes his list of queries to run dry. This simply leads him back to poking and prodding on aspects of her school life.

A bitter grimace forms on her face when he asks about her instructors, shifting her gaze away from him again to look off in space, most likely thinking yet not vocalizing her feelings on the matter. Considering how she interacts with him regularly, he thinks Frost just has problems with authority, and he wonders if this extends into the household, as well. The topic of family he tries not to pry too much into, though, only asking if she gets along with her parents — she does, but they aren’t close, it seems — and if she has any siblings, to which she says “No, I don’t.”

A lull falls over the two of them, reminding Kuai Liang just how quiet the shoppe is past nightfall. Expression vaguely irritated with a tenseness in her jaw and a knot pulling her brows, Frost twists her body in the chair to glance at the clock on the wall beside the display case. It’s late, it’s a Saturday night, and if she has any plans for the weekend, he’s keeping her from them.

Before she takes the chance to speak up, Kuai Liang tries to compromise with her. “Listen, I will only ask of you one more question and then I will bother you no longer,” he says, putting his hands up again as he had before, palms out and facing the person across from him. She sighs, readjusting her posture against the backrest, shifting her furrowed gaze away for only a moment before shooting her vivid blue eyes back at her employer. He ponders where she learned to stare with such intensity.

"For all the time you have worked here, I have never seen you eat any of the items that we serve to others," he says, then settling his hands onto his lap as he continues, "so I wonder what your favorite dessert even is."

Even though she rolls her eyes at such a statement, her expression softens if only by a sliver, the crease of her brows faltering, the corners of her mouth being pulled into a pursed and conflicted smile, the tenseness of her shoulders easing and falling into gentle slopes. What she’s thinking, he doesn’t know, but already he can feel the grin returning to his face at her finally not looking so full of disdain.

The hardness in her voice is still there as she says, “You don’t even make it, so it doesn’t matter.” When she’s finished speaking, her eyes do not shift over to meet his again, still staring at a spot past his body in a absent-minded stare. Suddenly he understands the mood she carries is not entirely that of disdain but rather more of something akin to dejection.

He disregards the tone of her words — not sure how to approach even the slightest bit of vulnerability she’s shown him for the first time — to instead implore with her to share it with him anyway. “I am sure that I can make an attempt,” he claims, reminding himself of Tuesday afternoon and the revelation of sweet plum-flavored syrup.

If what she says is true, then who knows? Maybe it will become a permanent addition to his menu.

A hand lifts to rub at the soft dip of her temple, sitting in silence for a few moments as she closes her eyes in what is most likely thought — hopefully not anger. The glittered cerulean shadow on her eyes glimmer in the faint lights of the dining area, thin lines of makeup formed in the creases of her eyelids after a long day of work.

Since her first day, the more... conservative and often older customers give her dirty looks sometimes, staring pointedly at her extravagant eye makeup, blue gradients painted up to her impeccably shaped eyebrows and thick, black liner framing the sharp gaze of her eyes. And if it wasn’t the heavily applied makeup on her eyes that earned their disapproval, it was always the short, bleached shock of hair atop her head instead.

Kuai Liang has never minded the way she presents herself, mostly in part because he believes he is no place to police her personal choices even as her employer, but also he appreciates the effort someone puts into feeling comfortable in their own skin at a young age, something he felt he couldn’t achieve in his own youth. The deep scar across his face has become so natural to him that he’s hardly conscious of it now, but through his adolescence he was constantly worried about it, afraid of strangers staring and his peers throwing ridicule at him.

Frost exhales and simply states, “Blue raspberry lemonade slushie.”

He is almost taken aback at the specificity of her favorite — which explains why she hadn’t mentioned it before — but regardless he gets out of his chair, pushing it in with a muted dragging sound. He sets his folded apron on the table and then heads toward the kitchen. She doesn’t follow him, deciding to stay in her seat while he ruminates on how to prepare a slushie.

Her saying lemonade makes him want to head straight for the fridge as soon as he walks into the kitchen, but going through his mental inventory checklist, he ran out of lemons this morning when preparing another batch of the pale yellow sorbet.

Crouching down in front of a counter, he searches the cabinet holding his collection of shaved ice syrups, digging around for one labeled blue raspberry and one for lemon-lime. From experience with creating sorbet, he knows that there must be a proper balance between sugar and water in order to keep the dessert from either becoming completely solid or an icy soup. It’s been years since he has made a miscalculation with his sorbet recipe, so now he has to teach himself how to mess up again.

Grabbing the blue bottle with one hand and the yellow-green bottle with the other, he stands up and shuts the cabinet door with his foot, taking long strides out of the kitchen to set the containers on the countertop space near the blender. With a grief glance he sees Frost watching him as he goes to the icebox, using the shovel to pour cubes to the midway point of the blender jar.

He takes a paper cup usually meant for milkshakes and returns to the back to fill about a third of it with water. The clear liquid joins the ice inside the plastic jar, the blocks creaking and cracking in it. Without turning his head as he works, Kuai Liang calls out saying, “I am afraid that I do not have any means of creating a lemonade flavor, so I will have to make do with lemon-lime syrup.” He waits for a possible response as he twists off the cap of a bottle, and all he receives is a plain “okay.”

Eyeballing the measurements, he pours the vivid blue syrup over the ice and watches as the cubes soak up the color. He splashes just enough of the electric yellow flavoring that the drink remains bright sapphire blue, trying to avoid it from fading into a sea green shade and effectively defeating the “blue raspberry” tone of the beverage.

With a press of a button the appliance comes to life, shredding and crushing the ice into fine chunks. After only a few seconds the blender has nearly liquidized the ingredients, so he switches it back off to keep the drink at the right consistency. He twists the jar and pulls it off of the base by the handle, tipping it over only slightly to taste test the slush with the dip of his middle finger. It’s good.

He carefully pours the blue drink into the same cup as before, filling it at around the two-thirds mark, draining the blender jar aside from the expected remains. Before he approaches Frost, he pulls out a straw from the container beside the register and pushes the purple plastic right in the center.

As he takes his final step towards her, she still appears bored, expression caught between unimpressed and curious. She grabs the base of it with her palm on its underside as he hands it to her and brings the straw to her mouth for her first tentative sip.

He settles in the chair across from her again, watching her face as she sucks on her teeth after her first gulp, scanning her eyes across the granite tabletop as if she was reading the cracks inside the stone. He sees it when her eyelashes flutter, when lips curl in a small grin, when her brows go tender and suddenly she looks soft. It lasts for longer than a brief moment in time, longer than all the other times he saw a hint of warmth in such a cold gaze and blinked only to find it gone as easy as it came.

“Do you enjoy it?” he asks, confidently scooting his seat forward. He folds his hands in his lap again while she places hers onto the table, both palms cradling the base of the plain white paper cup, swallowing the second sip and immediately going for another. Kuai Liang chuckles faintly, scratching the side of his neck with nails that are in need of a trim. Clearly she does.

She tries more of it the third time around, savoring the taste as she rolls it around her mouth with her tongue. He tries to remember even a single time where she ate or at least tried anything from Dragon Ice’s menu, yet his memory serves him well as well as he thought and what he told her earlier was true; she never has.

Frost relaxes into a slump in her chair while finishing her third taste, grin not yet removed from her face. She is tentative as she parts her lips to say, “Yeah. Thanks, boss.” Seemingly realizing the way she looks in this moment, she straightens her back and sits upright, hardening her face with a tap of her cup on the table.

“Okay,” she declares, “now it’s my turn for Twenty Questions.”

His grin broadens at that and he replies, “Gladly.”

Most of her inquires reflect his own in some way, with less emphasis on academia and more on early work experience. Building the business was difficult on his own — though not without some help from Tomas when he was able — but it’s strange to think it has nearly been a decade since he first hung the “open” sign on the glass door. Some of his customers have been visiting for almost the same amount of time, such Raiden or that mysterious karate gi-wearing man whose name he still doesn’t know.

She does ask about his life prior to moving to this lakeside town, back in mainland China, living in the foothills of the Beijing mountains. Like Frost, he did quite well in school, though he wasn’t into mathematics as much as she is, more of his interest resting in history and a few culinary courses. He says only a bit about his elder brother, recalling snowball fights in the winter and sparring in the summer.

The question of his parents is awkward not for him, but for her, when he plainly replies that he is an orphan. He doesn’t think much of his lack of parents — doesn’t see why he would if he didn’t really have them to begin with — especially now that he is so much older, but Frost looks rigid, as if she had said something out of line. He explains it to her — he and his brother were orphaned at very young ages — and assures that he takes no offense from the question. How could he if he spent ten minutes being nosy with her?

He tells her more about Tomas, about his endeavors as a common volunteer at the animal shelter downtown, about finding each other again in an entirely different country. Then he admits that he honestly doesn’t have many friends aside from his beloved childhood companion and the regular patrons he can easily carry conversations with.

It is then that her expression turns a bit sly, teasing smirk tugging at one side of her mouth as she finishes off another sip of the treat. She sets the drink onto the table, fingers still curled around each side as she stares directly at him, the same menace he saw on her face yesterday.

He knows what she’s going to say before she even opens her mouth.

Already he feels heat building up in his face, embarrassment born from being read by a famous stranger who did it with so little effort and subsequently have his young coworker take notice of it, too. He doesn’t have much of a personal life outside of work — his job is his life — but romance and relationships are the few things that he tries to keep outside of the parlor.

“Have you called the pretty boy yet?” she asks, sticking the straw in her mouth again as she stifles a giggle.

Kuai Liang groans internally, dragging a hand down his face and feeling the hotness searing at his cheeks as his fingers skim over the skin. He was hoping to avoid this, but he has no reason to be dishonest with her, not after prying her about her own life — even if he didn’t ask her about a crush or a significant other.

“Not yet,” he sighs. He’s nervous, speaking to Hanzo for the first time outside of work. The man hasn’t contacted him either, but it’s hardly been twenty-four hours since he listed out the digits of his phone number out loud, and he’s been busy with the weekend work rush, and—

“I didn’t peg you for a gay man,” she says and Kuai Liang fumbles, finding himself unable to control the situation like Johnny had done to him just the evening before. Before he can explain himself — didn’t think it was important, didn’t want to out himself for fear of rejection — she continues, “I don’t really care. I’m not straight either.”

Well.

No judgment to be found, then.

Her honesty relieves him, if only a little. Still he scrambles around in his mind for something to say while she nonchalantly downs more of her frozen beverage. It isn’t like him to get flustered, and he makes point of not becoming a mess by avoiding such circumstances as these. If he hadn’t been so enamored by someone he had never seen before, he would have been spared by the onslaught of embarrassment for this entire week.

“I apologize for my moments of unprofessionalism recently,” he states, distracting his unease by flattening the apron sitting upon the table, creases sharpening as he stretches his palm from one side to the other.

Frost hums in amusement, standing up with the drink in hand. He looks up at her as she straightens her posture, waiting for him to meet her gaze so she can say, “At first I hated it because I thought you were being annoying. Now I don’t mind it because it means I get see you squirm.” Without missing a beat she asks, “Can I go now?”

 _We are being friendly_ , Kuai Liang tells himself, _I am not her boss right now_.

“Of course,” he replies, standing up as well and towering over her short form, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulders. She turns away, heading toward the back office to grab her backpack, untying the apron with her free hand as she does so. Kuai Liang follows after her and stops at the counter, reading over the unfinished chart full of handwriting that isn’t his own.

She emerges from the office within a few moments, bag slung over one of her shoulders with her apron draped over the opposite arm. He nods toward her as she passes, but she timidly pauses mid-stride and shifts her gaze back and forth from the floor to his face. “Thanks again. It’s good,” she says with a shake of the cup, the slush shuffling around inside with the motion.

Kuai Liang smiles at her and she starts walking again, sipping on the drink with determination to get to the front door as soon as she can.

“Have a nice night, Frost,” he calls to her back.

Frost lifts an open hand above her head in a still wave. “You too, boss.”

* * *

Despite the sounds of the gentle guitar streaming through the laptop speakers, the ring of soft chimes echoing into the kitchen, the simple ambiance of boiling water on the stovetop, his cell phone feels like it’s burning a hole through his pants’ pocket.

Kuai Liang tries to distract himself with stirring the noodles of his late-night dinner and making sure that they do not stick to the pan, but the new number in his contacts list is getting the best of his attention, reminding him that he finally has an opportunity to speak with Hanzo one-on-one without the weight of customers requiring his service at the same time. He can talk to Hanzo.

With his heart slamming against his ribcage with the right amount of ferocity for it to tear out of his chest, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it with a quick swipe. It doesn’t take him long to scroll down to Hanzo’s among the sea of names and faces, yet he continues to hesitate with his thumb hovering over the call button.

He closes his eyes while taking a deep breath and on the back of his eyelids he sees Frost’s impish, devious expression smirking back at him, the words “pretty boy” falling off her tongue with the same teasing, _I see the way you look at him_ tone as Johnny Cage.

His thumb meets the smooth glass of his phone with frustrated determination, mind screaming at him for letting his awkwardness overtake him and for allowing the weaponization of his infatuation to be used against him by his own employee.

The dialing tone goes on for what feels like forever, making the beating in his chest only sound harder in his ears among the phone’s ringing, but suddenly it ends and he is met with an unprepared and flustered, “Hello?” On the other end of the call he hears the squeal of a child’s laughter and what sounds like a plastic toy being thrown around on the floor.

“Hello,” Kuai Liang replies and then clears his throat, peering at the skillet to check on the sliced beef cooking inside as he answers. “It is, uh, Kuai Liang. From the ice cream parlor.”

“Oh!” the voice exclaims, “Forgive me for not recognizing your voice. You... ah, you sound different.” In the background he hears the child — Takeda, most definitely — giggling again, little feet smacking around hardwood floors and getting closer and closer to the microphone with each step.

“So do you,” he says, turning off the stovetop with the smile creeping onto his lips. Hanzo chuckles into the phone, a warm and welcoming sound filtering through the tiny speakers and causing the fluttering returning to Kuai Liang’s stomach. “I know it is late, but I do not have much free time throughout the day.”

“You need not worry,” he says, pulling the phone away for a moment to shout for Kenshi’s assistance. “Work keeps me occupied just the same, at least when I am not busy attempting to put a child to bed,” he continues, the chuckle of another man’s voice in the background following soon after.

That unsure twist pulls at his gut again, but he lets it fade as he laughs along, too. The nervousness itching at his skin melts into a comfortable ease as their conversation flows on as if they've been talking together for weeks already. The two of them trade leisurely back-and-forths about work, dinner, and the prospect of a birthday party hosted by Johnny Cage, the surrounding world seemingly vanishing around them and leaving Kuai Liang to simply listen to the sound of Hanzo's voice.


End file.
